On 5 January 2026, the High Court handed down Judgment following a two-day trial of a claim brought in breach of contract and for harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The Court granted the Claimants permanent injunctions and awarded the Second Claimant compensatory damages in the sum of £25,000.
The First Claimant, Optosafe, is a company incorporated in Scotland and owned by Orbis Protect Limited, which provides vacant property protection and ancillary services across the UK. The Defendant had worked for Optosafe for several years, both prior to and following the acquisition of Optosafe by Orbis. He ceased to be employed by Optosafe during 2021, and about two years later started publishing posts on the professional networking platform LinkedIn, which were disparaging and derogatory of Optosafe and its officers and employees. These included the Second Claimant, Ben Howard, who by then was CEO of the Orbis group as well as being a director of Optosafe. The Defendant also sent a series of direct messages to certain of his former colleagues and took various steps to represent an ongoing association between himself and the Orbis group.
After various attempts to de-escalate the situation, Optosafe was left with no practical alternative but to sue for breach of contract in relation to the Defendant’s exit terms, in conjunction with a representative claim in harassment brought by Mr Howard on behalf of himself and various other targeted individuals. Chamberlain J granted an interim injunction in contract and harassment in January 2024. The matter then proceeded to trial on 11 and 12 November 2025, before Mrs Justice Steyn DBE.
In the Judgment handed down, Steyn J: a) determined both the breach of contract claim and the harassment claim in the Claimants’ favour; b) granted a permanent injunction against the Defendant; c) awarded Mr Howard damages in the sum of £25,000, to compensate him for the distress and injury to feelings suffered by him as a result of the Defendant’s campaign of harassment; and d) imposed a General Civil Restraint Order against the Defendant for a period of three years.
The Judgment can be found here
A full case report can be found here
5RB’s Jonathan Barnes KC and Gemma McNeil-Walsh acted for the Claimants, instructed by Proskauer Rose (London) LLP.