Laurence Fox has already said he will appeal a £2 million High Court ruling after he lost his libel battle with two people he referred to as paedophiles on social media.
The actor and right-wing activist was found guilty of libelling former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and drag artist Crystal over a row on X in October 2020.
Fox, 45, called Mr Blake and the former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, whose real name is Colin Seymour, ‘paedophiles’ in an exchange about a decision by Sainsbury’s to celebrate Black History Month.
The Lewis star – who founded the Reclaim Party – tried but ultimately failed to counter-sue the pair and actress Nicola Thorp over tweets accusing him of racism.
Speaking after the ruling, Fox suggested that his counterclaim was unfairly dismissed because the judge ‘could not define what a racist was’.
Speaking outside court, Fox planted a kiss on his girlfriend Elizabeth Barker before telling reporters: ‘So what we’ve got is nothing. It means we are going to have to go back to court, to appeal, and finally get to the meaning of this word – what is a racist?’
As for his guilty verdict for referring to Blake and Seymour as ‘paedophiles’, he said: ‘It was a rhetorical device in response to what they said. I apologised to each of them in court.’
Laurence Fox has already said he will appeal a £2 million High Court ruling after he lost his libel battle
Fox kisses his girlfriend Elizabeth Barker outside court after his guilty verdict today
The actor and right-wing activist was found guilty of libelling former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and drag artist Crystal over a row on X in October 2020
The Lewis star – who founded the Reclaim Party – tried but ultimately failed to counter-sue the pair and actress Nicola Thorp over tweets accusing him of racism
Simon Blake (left), Nicola Thorp and Colin Seymour (right) pictured on November 22
Laurence Fox makes a statement outside the the Royal Courts Of Justice, central London
The actor and right-wing activist told the High Court that a tweet by actress Nicola Thorp calling him ‘unequivocally, publicly and undeniably a racist’ ended his career.
But in her ruling today, Mrs Justice Collins Rice said: ‘Mr Fox’s labelling of Mr Blake and Mr Seymour as paedophiles was, on the evidence, probabilities and facts of this case, seriously harmful, defamatory and baseless.’
She added that Fox did not attempt to show the allegations were true or provide ‘any other defence’ recognised in law.
As for Fox’s countersuit, the Judge ruled: ‘The law does not regard the particular imputations against Mr Fox that he was a racist, made by Mr Blake, Mr Seymour or Ms Thorp, as defamatory.’
The Judge added that although such opinion is an ‘inherently defamatory tendency’, Mr Fox did not sufficiently show that the tweets themselves caused harm to his reputation or ‘make readers adversely change their minds about him to that degree’.
She added: ‘In those circumstances, the law does not require Mr Blake, Mr Seymour and Ms Thorp to be put to any further defence of the opinions they expressed.’
Summarising, she said: ‘Mr Blake’s and Mr Seymour’s claims succeed. Mr Fox’s counterclaims are dismissed.’
In a statement outside court, Fox told reporters that it was an ‘interesting day’.
He said: ‘So today the Judge ruled that I didn’t suffer any serious harm through the allegations of racism. Which is strange because at the same time she also declined to define the meaning of the word racist. So I’m at a slight loss as to how you can be defamed whilst not defining what you are being defamed for.’
Summarising his point, he persisted: ‘I just want a definition of the word’.
Continuing, he said: ‘I was active for 22 years and very successful. And my most successful job was the last one where I pointed out something that upset me about how Sainsbury’s were behaving towards their black employees and that it was discriminatory and racist.
‘Yes Sainsbury’s I think you are racist’, he declared to the cameras.
‘And I asked to just find out what that word means. So here we are sat, two million quid in, and now we’re going to have to go through another court to find out what it means.’
Taking to social media after the verdict, Nicola Thorp wrote on X: ‘We won. On all counts.
She continued: ‘For the last three years, Laurence Fox has held us responsible for the downfall of his acting career, his failure to become London Mayor and even the increasing cost of his car insurance. During my cross-examination, his barrister even suggested I was responsible for his arrest in October last year. All because on 4th October 2020 we exercised our right to free speech by expressing our honestly held opinions.
‘The same man who later told a black man to “f*** off back to Jamaica”, posted pride flags in the shape of a swastika and shared blacked up images of himself and his children. It’s time that Mr Fox accepted that any damage to his reputation is entirely his own doing.’
Fox is supported by his partner as he makes a statement after his court loss today
Speaking after the ruling, Fox suggested that his counterclaim was unfairly dismissed because the judge ‘could not define what a racist was’
In a statement outside court, Fox told reporters that it was an ‘interesting day’
Laurence Fox walks arm-in-arm with his girlfriend after coming out of High Court in London
During a trial in London in November, Mr Fox was described an alleged ‘intelligent racist with an agenda’
During a trial in London in November, Mr Fox was described an alleged ‘intelligent racist with an agenda’.
Lorna Skinner KC, representing Mr Blake, Mr Seymour and Ms Thorp, said the trio ‘honestly believed, and continue honestly to believe, that Mr Fox is a racist’.
She said the actor ‘has made a number of highly controversial statements about race’, adding: ‘If and to the extent that Mr Fox has been harmed in his reputation, it is his own conduct and not the claimants’ comments on it that caused that harm.’
In her ruling today, the Judge established: ‘This judgment accordingly contains no determination of, or any view about, whether or not (a) the opinion that Mr Fox was a racist was one “an honest person could have held” and was indeed genuinely so held or (b) the imputation that Mr Fox was a racist was “substantially true”‘.
In his evidence discussing his call for a boycott of Sainsbury’s, Mr Fox said the supermarket had been ‘essentially emotionally blackmailing their customers’ and that he has not shopped there since.
He continued: ‘I felt that rather than genuinely trying to tackle racism, Sainsbury’s were trying to improve their own image, branding themselves as the anti-racist supermarket.
‘I see the phrase ‘safe space’ as just locally friendly language for discrimination by segregation, dividing people down the line of skin colour.’
Mr Fox added that he believes Black History Month is ‘a grift, designed to make black people feel like they’re in some way undervalued in our society’ and called the Black Lives Matter movement ‘extremely divisive’.
Ms Skinner previously highlighted several of Mr Fox’s social media posts, including a June 2022 tweet of four pride flags arranged in the shape of a swastika.
‘Such a disgusting post could only be made by a complete ignoramus or an intelligent racist with an agenda. Mr Fox is the latter,’ she said.
In his written evidence for the case, Mr Seymour, a Canadian artist, said he had faced ‘overwhelming and distressing’ abuse after Mr Fox’s tweet, adding that he felt less safe as a drag performer.
Mr Blake, now chief executive of Mental Health First Aid England, said the incorrect suggestion that gay men were paedophiles was ‘a trope as old as the hills’.
Broadcaster Nicola Thorp claimed that Mr Fox had ‘outed himself as a racist’ with a tweet calling for a boycott of the supermarket.
She said that any reputational harm Mr Fox suffered ‘was because of what he did, not because of what I said’.
Patrick Green KC, representing Mr Fox, told the court neither Mr Blake nor Mr Seymour ‘has suffered any actual, real-world consequences’ due to the actor’s tweets.
The actor and right-wing activist told the High Court that a tweet by actress Nicola Thorp calling him ‘unequivocally, publicly and undeniably a racist’ ended his career (pictured with girlfriend Elizabeth Barker outside court on November 22)
Mr Fox, who denies being a racist, said in his written evidence he was ‘horrified’ when he saw he had been called a racist, which he later described as ‘a career-ending word, and a reputation-destroying allegation’
Mr Fox said in his witness evidence he had a ‘vibrant and busy’ work life before the tweets and before Ms Latimer dropped him, he was asked to audition for roles including Batman and Succession
The barrister said the posts did not cause people to think worse of Mr Blake and Mr Seymour, and that people did not believe they were paedophiles.
Instead, Mr Green said readers would have understood that Mr Fox’s posts were a ‘retort to an allegation of racism’ rather than a factual allegation.
Mr Fox told the court he was ‘horrified’ when he saw he had been called a racist, which he later described as ‘a career-ending word and a reputation-destroying allegation’.
He said his life was ‘destroyed’ by ‘hurtful’ racism allegations and he was left unable to get a mortgage.
He said in court: ‘Without the prospect of work from her and the income from it, I couldn’t get a mortgage.
‘The only income I earned at that point was from the Reclaim Party. To this day I haven’t bought a house, I only received one mortgage offer very recently, and it was far too high and wouldn’t have been worth my while to take it.’
Mr Fox later said he has faced similar issues to Nigel Farage being ‘debanked’, with his bank ‘regularly questioning’ legitimate transactions and claimed his car insurance premium increased by nearly £9,000.
He added in his witness evidence he had a ‘vibrant and busy’ work life before the tweets and before Ms Latimer dropped him, he was asked to audition for roles including Batman and Succession, and ‘multiple other Netflix, Disney+ and HBO productions’.
He continued: ‘It’s a source of incredible sadness to me that my skill set, which has been highly trained, used at great length over 23 or 24 years – it’s just been completely put away.’