Legal Notice for Defamation

What to gather

• A dated capture of the statement itself — screenshot, recording or the printed pageMost importantThis is the whole claim, and it is the one piece of evidence the other side can destroy. A post taken down after your notice arrives is a good outcome and a lost exhibit at the same time, so capture it before you send anything. Include the surrounding page — the account name, the date, the visible reply and share counts — not just the words.Do it now, before the notice goes out. Screenshot the full page rather than cropping to the sentence, save the link, and note the date and time you captured it. If it is already deleted, look for it in someone else's forward, a group chat, or a cached or archived copy.
• Something that ties the statement to the person you are namingMost importantThe first thing denied is authorship. The profile, the number the message came from, the letterhead, or a witness who heard it said — without this the notice is addressed to somebody who can simply say it was not them.Capture the profile page or account handle as well as the post, keep the original message with its sender details rather than a forwarded copy, and write down who else saw or heard it while you still remember.
• Evidence that other people actually saw or heard itA statement made only to you is a different thing in law from one published to others. The group it was posted in, the number of members, the replies, the people who mentioned it to you — that is what turns a private insult into a reputational harm.Note the group or platform and roughly how many people it reaches, and save any reply, share or message from somebody who read it. A colleague's WhatsApp asking you about it is proof it travelled.