Actor and politician Laurence Fox has been ordered to pay £90,000 each in damages to two individuals he referred to as “paedophiles.” Fox lost a High Court case with former Stonewall trustee, Simon Blake, and drag artist, Crystal. The remarks on social media platform Twitter came in an exchange about a supermarket marking Black History Month.
Mrs Justice Collins Rice said the comments were “gross, groundless, and indefensible.” Reclaim Party founder, Fox, counter-sued the pair over tweets accusing him of racism and attempted to sue broadcaster, Nicola Thorp, for the same reason. In January, the court ruled in favour of Blake and former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, Colin Seymour, and dismissed Fox’s counter-claims.
The judge did not make a ruling on whether describing Fox as “a racist” was “substantially true” but stated that three tweets in his counter-claim were unlikely to cause serious harm to his reputation. Fox could face a guilty verdict of contempt of court if he repeated the allegations against Blake and Seymour. Mrs Justice Collins Rice said she accepted the evidence of the two individuals that they experienced Fox’s libel as “distinctively homophobic.”
Fox, who unsuccessfully stood for London mayor in 2021, described the original judgement as a “bully’s charter” and said he disagreed “profoundly” with the result ahead of Thursday’s sentencing. He previously made his name as an actor and has two children with his ex-wife Billie Piper. Fox also hosted a weekly GB News show before being sacked in October last year over comments he made about a female journalist on air
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