Laurence Fox loses his libel case

Things go from bad to worse for Laurence Fox. In October, he was sacked from his GB News gig; in December, the Reclaim leader shed his party’s sole MP. And today, the actor-turned-politician lost a High Court libel case with two people he called ‘paedophiles’ on social media. Former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and drag artist Crystal duly launched the action follow a row on Twitter/X October 2020 about Sainsbury’s decision to mark Black History Month.

Fox counter-sued the pair and TalkTV broadcaster Nicola Thorp over tweets accusing him of racism. But in a ruling today, High Court judge Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled in favour of Blake and Seymour and dismissed Fox’s counter-claims. She said:

Mr Fox’s labelling of Mr Blake and Mr Seymour as paedophiles was, on the evidence, probabilities and facts of this case, seriously harmful, defamatory and baseless. The law affords few defences to defamation of this sort.