Blake v Fox [2025] EWCA Civ 1321

The claimants (Simon Blake, Colin Seymour and Nicola Thorp) each sued Mr Fox for libel over his tweets accusing them of being paedophiles. Mr Fox counterclaimed over their tweets calling him racist. Ms Thorp’s claim was dismissed following a ruling by the Court of Appeal that Mr Fox’s tweet about her was not defamatory ([2023] EWCA Civ 1000). Following trial, Collins Rice J held that Mr Fox’s tweets had caused serious harm to Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s reputations, awarding each £90,000 in damages. The judge dismissed Mr Fox’s counterclaims on the ground that the claimants’ tweets had not caused serious harm to his reputation, and in the light of that determination decided not to determine the issues of truth and honest opinion.

Mr Fox was permitted to appeal on the following grounds in respect of his counterclaims:

1. That the judge erred in law in her approach to the issue of serious harm, particularly by:

a. treating the claimants’ tweets as less harmful because they were expressions of opinion;

b. relying on specific incidents to conclude that Mr Fox already had a general bad reputation as a racist; and

c. relying on inadmissible evidence of third-party tweets as evidence that Mr Fox already had a general bad reputation as a racist, contrary to the rule in Dingle v Associated Newspapers Ltd [1964] AC 371.

2. That the judge erred in failing to find that the evidence compelled a conclusion that each of the claimants’ tweets caused serious harm to Mr Fox’s general reputation, and in applying the wrong legal test for causation, focusing on whether the tweets were the sole or dominant cause of the harm to his career, rather than whether they made a material contribution.

Mr Fox was further permitted to appeal on three main grounds in respect of Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s claims:

3. That the judge erred in law by wrongly overpromoting the role of the single meaning of the tweets to the governing factor in the assessment of serious harm.

4. That the judge’s conclusions on serious harm were plainly wrong, in particular by failing properly to account for Mr Fox’s mitigating conduct and apology and the claimants’ conduct in provoking Mr Fox’s tweets.

5. That, if the threshold of serious harm was crossed, the judge’s assessment of the damages due to Mr Blake and Mr Seymour was perverse.

Held: Appeal allowed in part. In respect of Mr Fox’s counterclaims, the Court set aside the dismissal of those claims on the issue of serious harm and determined that serious harm had been caused to Mr Fox’s reputation and remitted the counterclaims to the High Court for retrial on the defences of honest opinion and truth and, if liability was established, damages. In relation to Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s claims, the appeal on liability was dismissed but damages were reduced to £45,000 each.

Mr Fox’s counterclaims

1. Opinion and Fact (Ground 1(a))

The Court rejected the submission that the judge had erred in treating expressions of opinion as less harmful than factual allegations. Her approach to the contextual nature of the tweets was within the bounds of principle.

2. Serious Harm (Grounds 1(b)–(c))

The Court held that the judge had erred in law by treating earlier third-party publications and specific incidents said to be discreditable to Mr Fox as evidence that Mr Fox had a general bad reputation as a racist. This approach was contrary to Dingle and to Plato Films Ltd v Speidel [1961] AC 1090, as well as to the Court of Appeal’s decision in Wright v McCormack [2023] EWCA Civ 892; [2024] KB 495. The claimants had not pursued at trial their pleaded case that Mr Fox had a general bad reputation as a racist, and it was impermissible for the judge to infer one.

3. Causation (Ground 2)

The Court found that the trial judge had applied the wrong legal test on causation when considering whether the claimants’ tweets had damaged Mr Fox’s agency relationship and career, effectively asking whether the claimants’ tweets were the dominant or sole cause of harm rather than whether they had made a material contribution. So far as concerned Mr Fox’s case based on general reputational harm, each of the claimants’ tweets was capable of and did cause serious harm to Mr Fox’s reputation, and the judge had been wrong to find otherwise.

Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s Claims

4. Single Meaning Point (Ground 3)

The Court rejected the submission that the judge had wrongly treated the single meaning of Mr Fox’s tweets as determinative of serious harm, holding that Collins Rice J had properly relied on the earlier rulings on meaning as defining the scope of the imputations to be assessed, and that her approach disclosed no legal error.

5. Serious Harm (Ground 4)

The Court upheld the conclusion that Mr Fox’s tweets caused serious harm to Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s reputations.

6. Damages (Ground 5)

The Court held that the judge was wrong to disregard mitigating steps taken by Mr Fox after publication, to treat mainstream media reporting of the parties’ exchanges as evidence of additional reputation harm, and to treat a statement issued by Stonewall as evidence of reputation harm to Mr Blake. The Court reduced the damages awarded to Mr Blake and Mr Seymour from £90,000 each to £45,000, finding that while a substantial award to each of them was justified, their quantum exceeded the proper range when compared with other libel and personal injury awards.

• Depending on their context, expressions of opinions may in principle be inherently less harmful than statements of facts.
• The rule in Dingleprohibiting reliance on third-party publications of similar allegations as evidence that a claimant already had a general bad reputation remains good law and applies when assessing serious harm.
• Evidence of specific incidents alleged to be discreditable to the claimant as evidence that a claimant already had a general bad reputation is also prohibited.
• The material contribution test on causation applies in the context of serious harm in defamation when the court is assessing whether some specific alleged item of harm, relied on as evidence of serious harm to reputation, has been caused by the publication complained of.

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Blake and Seymour v Fox (Judgment)
Blake v Fox Remedies (Judgment)