Defamation
Blake and another v Fox and another [2024] EWHC 146 (KB), [2024] All ER (D) 120 (Jan)
The King’s Bench Division ruled on reciprocal libel claims relating to some brief exchanges on the social media platform then known as Twitter. The defendant actor and leader of the Remain Party had called for a boycott of a supermarket over an employee diversity and inclusion policy. The claimants had responded by calling the defendant a racist, and he had then proceeded to call each of them a paedophile. Each of the parties argued that no ‘serious harm’ could have been attributed to their own tweet(s), and that the test in s 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 had not been passed. The burden laid on the party who alleged defamation in each case to establish that the test had been passed and, if it had not, then that was the end of the matter. The court held, among other things, that: (i) the defendant’s labelling of the claimants as paedophiles was, on the evidence, probabilities and facts, seriously harmful, defamatory and baseless, therefore,
