The Supreme Court, by an order made on 3 June 2026, has refused Laurence Fox permission to appeal from the Court of Appeal’s determination of his earlier appeal against Collins Rice J’s decisions on liability and damages.
The claims and counterclaims in the case arose from Twitter exchanges between the parties in October 2020 which started with Mr Fox calling for a boycott of Sainsbury’s supermarket over an employee diversity and inclusion policy. Mr Blake, Mr Seymour and Ms Thorp responded by calling Mr Fox a “racist”, to which Mr Fox replied by calling each of his accusers “paedophiles”. Mr Blake, Mr Seymour and Ms Thorp sued Mr Fox for libel and Mr Fox counterclaimed.
Mr Blake and Mr Seymour’s libel claims against Mr Fox were upheld at trial. (Ms Thorp’s had been dismissed following the Court of Appeal’s interim ruling that Mr Fox’s tweet about her would not have been understood to be defamatory of her.) Mr Fox’s counterclaims were dismissed as Collins Rice J was not satisfied that the publication of the tweets of which he complained had caused his reputation serious harm. The judge then awarded Mr Blake and Mr Seymour £90,000 damages each.
Mr Fox appealed, contending that the judge had gone wrong in relation to the issue of serious harm in both the claims and his counterclaims and that the awards of damages were excessive.
The Court of Appeal (Dingemans, Elisabeth Laing & Warby LJJ) allowed Mr Fox’s appeal in part. It held that Collins Rice J had erred in her approach to serious harm and causation in Mr Fox’s counterclaims and that the serious harm requirement was clearly satisfied in relation to those claims. It therefore reinstated Mr Fox’s counterclaims, directing that the defences be re-tried and the issue of remedies if it arose. Meanwhile, in relation to Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s claims, it dismissed Mr Fox’s appeal from the judge’s decision on liability but reduced the damages awards to £45,000 each.
By Mr Fox’s proposed appeal to the Supreme Court, he sought to argue that the Court of Appeal had taken the wrong approach to Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s claims by treating the single meaning of the statements complained of as governing the issue of serious harm as opposed to their “actual meanings”, which he contended was contrary to Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd [2020] AC 612, and by not allowing Mr Fox to pursue his equitable set-off and ‘reply to attack’ qualified privilege defences to Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s claims once it had decided that the judge’s ruling on serious harm in those claims was sound.
However, the Supreme Court (Lord Reed, Lord Hamblen, Lord Richards) dismissed Mr Fox’s application for permission to appeal, holding that it did not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance which the Supreme Court ought to hear at this time.
The case will now proceed to the re-trial of Mr Fox’s counterclaims, with the defendants invoking defences of honest opinion (Mr Blake and Mr Seymour) and truth (Ms Thorp).
The Appellant, Mr Fox, was represented by Alexandra Marzec and Greg Callus of 5RB (led by Patrick Green KC), instructed by Gateley Legal.
The Respondents, Mr Blake and Mr Seymour, were represented by Adrienne Page KC and Godwin Busuttil of 5RB, instructed by Patron Law.
