Laurence Fox arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday to appeal against libel judgments that ordered him to pay £180,000 in damages for calling two people 'paedophiles' on social media. The actor-turned-politician was successfully sued by Stonewall CEO Simon Blake and drag artist Crystal, whose real name is Colin Seymour, over a Twitter exchange in October 2020.
The row began when Fox called for a boycott of Sainsbury's over its Black History Month campaign. Blake, Seymour and broadcaster Nicola Thorp called Fox 'a racist', prompting Fox to respond by labelling them 'paedophiles'. Fox defended his comments, claiming the term was a 'meaningless and baseless' insult. He said: 'Free speech. You throw meaningless and baseless insults at someone you get a meaningless and baseless insult in return.'
In two judgments in 2024, Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled in favour of Blake and Seymour, awarding each £90,000 in damages. She dismissed Fox's counterclaims against the trio over accusations of racism. Fox, 47, is now challenging the rulings at the Court of Appeal, with the hearing expected to conclude on Tuesday.
Patrick Green KC, for Fox, argued in written submissions that the original judgment should be quashed due to 'errors of approach', including over whether serious harm was caused. He said the judge's conclusions were 'plainly wrong' and that the damages decision did not consider the likelihood that many readers would not take the tweets seriously.
Adrienne Page KC, for Blake, Seymour and Thorp, countered that Fox's appeal was 'lacking in merit'. She said the tweets conveyed 'factual imputations of the most serious defamatory character' and that there was 'no meaningful retraction or apology' by Fox. She added that the damages awarded were 'unexceptionable'.
Fox previously suggested that £2 million had been spent on the legal battle, and said of the appeal: 'That's another million quid we are going to have to spend to find out the meaning of a word every single person in this country knows.'
