Optosafe Limited & Anr v Robertson [2026] EWHC 12 (KB)

The Claimants (Optosafe Limited and Ben Howard, director of Optosafe and CEO of its parent company, Orbis Protect Limited) sued for breach of contract and harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, respectively. Both claims related to the Defendant’s publication of numerous posts on LinkedIn, which were generally lengthy, repetitive, and abusive. These were accompanied by a series of direct messages from the Defendant to Mr Howard and various of his colleagues. Mr Howard sued on his own behalf and in a representative capacity on behalf of colleagues.

The Defendant himself had previously been the Chief Technology Officer of and a shareholder in Optosafe. He left his final role as Managing Director in 2021. The Claimants were granted an interim injunction by Chamberlain J in January 2024, and the matter proceeded to a two-day trial on 11 and 12 November 2025.

At trial, the Claimants sought permanent injunctive relief; Mr Howard also sought damages in respect of distress and injury to feelings suffered as a result of the Defendant’s campaign of harassment.

In respect of the breach of contract claim, had the Defendant breached a contractual non-representation clause by, amongst other matters, referring to himself as “Mr Optosafe” and incorporating a company called “Sitex Orbis Fraud Investigations Limited”? Secondly, had the Defendant’s LinkedIn posts contained adverse and derogatory comments so as to put the Defendant in breach of his contractual non-disparagement obligations?

In respect of the claim brought under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, had the Defendant engaged in a course of conduct that amounted to harassment when he knew, or ought to have known, that his conduct amounted to harassment? If so, had the Defendant pursued such a course of conduct for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime under s1(3)(a) of the 1997 Act, or so that it was reasonable whistleblowing or in any event otherwise in all the circumstances, such that he could rely on s1(3)(c)?

In respect of relief, should there be permanent injunctions, should Mr Howard recover damages, and should there be a continued form of civil restraint order following the Limited Civil Restraint Order that had been imposed on the Defendant during the course of the proceedings?

Judgment was entered in the Claimants’ favour:

1. The First Claimant had established its claim for breach of contract in respect of the contractual non-representation and non-disparagement obligations. There was no defence to these claims. A permanent injunction against repetition was appropriate.
2. The Second Claimant had established his claim for harassment in his own capacity and as a representative claimant. There was no defence to these claims – the conduct concerned was not for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime, legitimate whistleblowing or any other purpose that the 1997 Act envisaged might be reasonable. A permanent injunction in this respect, too, was appropriate. Further, the Second Claimant was entitled to £25,000 damages as compensation for his distress and injury to feelings caused by the Defendant’s campaign of harassment.

The Court also considered it appropriate to impose a General Civil Restraint Order against the Defendant for a period of three years in the light of various aspects of his conduct of the proceedings.

This was a ‘harassment by publication’ case, relying primarily on numerous posts on the professional networking site LinkedIn but also on direct emails sent by the Defendant to his former colleagues in the Claimants’ camp. Case law requires particular scrutiny when it comes to harassment by publication, because any “publication” necessarily engages a defendant’s right to freedom of expression. That is the case both where an interim injunction is sought, as it was here, and also at trial. However, as this case shows, Article 10 cannot be a trump card at either stage, where, as the trial Judge held, the Defendant’s choices in expressing himself bore “all the hallmarks of a course of conduct amounting to harassment” [143]. In particular, the Judge found the Defendant’s communications to be harassing both in their form (“in just over five months… the second claimants and the others targeted by the defendant were bombarded with about 80 messages, many of them lengthy… [143]) and in their content (“the defendant’s tone was frequently taunting and mocking… posts were frequently abusive… his messages were littered with bare insults… He made vulgar assertions” [144-145]). Accordingly, the trial process served to vindicate the interim injunction that was granted as long ago as January 2024.

• Judgment