Ruling: Fox ordered to pay £180,000 damages after libelling pair on Twitter

LAURENCE Fox has been ordered to pay a total of £180,000 in damages to two people he referred to as paedophiles on social media after losing a High Court libel battle.

The actor-turned-politician was successfully sued by former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and drag artist Crystal over a row on Twitter, now known as X.

Mr Fox called Mr Blake and the former Rupaul’s

Drag Race contestant, whose real name is Colin Seymour, “paedophiles” in an exchange about a decision by Sainsbury’s to mark Black History Month in October 2020.

The Reclaim Party founder — who said at the time that he would boycott the supermarket — counter-sued the pair and broadcaster Nicola Thorp over tweets accusing him of racism.

In a judgment in January, Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled in favour of Mr Blake and Mr Seymour, dismissing Mr Fox’s counter-claims.

And in a ruling yesterday, the judge said Mr Fox — who she described as a “practised wielder of the public megaphone” — should pay Mr Blake and Mr Seymour £90,000 each in damages.

She said: “Engaging in a lively — even rude or offensive — online debate about a provocative call to boycott Sainsbury’s did not on any fair analysis invite the response Mr Fox visited upon them.

“Mr Blake and Mr Seymour were absolutely entitled not to have Mr Fox publicly call them paedophiles.”

Mrs Justice Collins Rice said Mr Fox subjected the pair “to a wholly undeserved public ordeal.

“It was a gross, groundless and indefensible libel, with distressing and harmful real-world consequences for them”.

Later in the judgment, Mrs Justice Collins Rice said she accepted the evidence of the pair that they experienced Mr Fox’s libel as “distinctively homophobic”.

Ahead of the ruling, Mr

Fox described the original judgment as a “bullies charter” and said that he disagreed “profoundly” with the result.