Woman Ordered To Pay Her Ex $200K For Ruining His Online Reputation

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Woman Ordered To Pay Ex $200,000 After Trashing His Reputation

A Supreme Court judge in Canada has ordered a Vancouver woman to pay her ex-boyfriend over $200,000 after she damaged his reputation online. The ruling was made on September 25, but was not published until Tuesday.

According to reports from Global News Canada, Vancouver resource industry executive Brandon Rook brought the case against his ex-girlfriend, Noelle Halcrow, after she began attacking him on social media following a pair of breakups about a year apart. Her posts allege some pretty serious claims, like saying Rook was an out-of-control drunk, a cheater, and carried STDs.

In his ruling, Judge Myers ended up concluding that Halcrow “mounted a campaign against Mr. Rook that was as relentless as it was extensive,” and that “she was motivated by malice.”

Rook and Halcrow dated briefly in August 2015 before Rook broke off the relationship, the ruling states. They began going out again in February of the following year, but Rook once again broke things off in August 2016. According to the ruling, that’s when the defamatory posts began.

Halcrow did not testify or present any evidence at trial, as she claimed that someone else had made the posts attacking Rook, but the judge rejected that argument.

“The evidence is clear and compelling that Ms. Halcrow did, in fact, put the posts on the web sites,” wrote Myers. He also pointed to evidence which showed that the posts had originated from the same IP address, where the social media accounts had been created and were composed in a writing style that matched Halcrow’s. Not only that, the judge also brought up text messages she had sent to Rook, talking about taking the posts down and threatening to put up new ones.

“The courts have recognized that the internet can be used as an exceedingly effective tool to harm reputations. This is one such case,” wrote Myers. “From the number of comments and viewings on many of the postings, it is clear that they received wide reading.”