On Friday, the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in Blake & Ors v Fox ([2025] EWCA Civ 1321).
The Court of Appeal allowed Mr Fox’s appeal in part against the decision of Collins Rice J ([2024] EWHC 146 (KB); [2024] EWHC 956 (KB)), holding that the judge had made material errors of law in her approach to serious harm and causation in Mr Fox’s counterclaims for libel. The claims and counterclaims arose from the parties’ well-publicised Twitter exchanges in October 2020 in which Mr Fox called for a boycott of Sainsbury’s supermarket over an employee diversity and inclusion policy. Mr Blake, Mr Seymour and Ms Thorp separately responded by calling Mr Fox a “racist”, to which he replied by calling each of his accusers “paedophiles”.
For the Appellant (Mr Fox): Alexandra Marzec and Greg Callus of 5RB, instructed by Gateley Legal.
For the Respondents (Mr Blake, Mr Seymour and Ms Thorp): Adrienne Page KC and Godwin Busuttil of 5RB, instructed by Patron Law.
The 5RB case report of the decision of Collins Rice J can be found here.
