Judgment in TPI in Kaur v Fox

On 10 July 2026, Mr Justice Linden handed down judgment in a trial of preliminary issues in a libel claim brought by Narinder Kaur against Laurence Fox.

The court was asked to determine: 1) meaning, 2) whether the meanings determined were defamatory of the Claimant at common law, 3) whether, and the extent to which, the meanings contained statements of fact or opinion under s.3(2) of the Defamation Act 2013, and 4) whether the statements indicated the basis of the opinion for the purposes of s.3(3) of the 2013 Act.

The Judge dismissed 8 of the 18 libel claims, for the following reasons:

1. Publications D, K and O did not satisfy the consensus requirement or cross the threshold of seriousness and as such were not defamatory at common law [83], [120], [133].
2.  Publication H did not refer to the Claimant, and even if the Defendant had named the Claimant, it would not cross the seriousness threshold required to be defamatory at common law [104]-[105].
3. Publication L did not refer to the Claimant, and even if it had named her, would simply be vulgar abuse in the context of the Defendant’s general criticisms of the country, and not defamatory at common law [123].
4. Publications M, N did not refer to the Claimant, and in the absence of a pleaded case as to what the hypothetical reader would have known about the Claimant, the Judge did not express a view about whether a meaning which named the Claimant would have been defamatory at common law [126]-[127], [129].
5. Publication R did not contain the words complained of and was not pursued [149].

The 10 remaining publications were held to be defamatory at common law.

The Judge held that s.3(3) of the 2013 Act was satisfied in the case of each of the statements of opinion which the Judge found to be defamatory [54].

The Judge refused the Claimant’s application for delivery up.  

The Defendant was represented by Greg Callus and Hector Penny of 5RB, instructed by DL Law LLP.

The case report is available here.