Lucy North/PA
A testimony given by Lawrence Fox during a High Court libel battle suggests his lawyers never had a hope of winning the case.
The actor-turned-politician was sued by former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and drag artist Crystal over a row on Twitter, now known as X, in October 2020.
Mr Fox 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 mark Black History Month.
The Reclaim Party founder – who said at the time that he would boycott the supermarket – counter-sued the pair and broadcaster Nicola Thorp over tweets accusing him of racism.
In a ruling on Monday, High Court judge Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled in favour of Mr Blake and Mr Seymour, dismissing Mr Fox’s counter-claims.
She 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.
“The law affords few defences to defamation of this sort.
“Mr Fox did not attempt to show these allegations were true, and he was not able to bring himself on the facts within the terms of any other defence recognised in law.”
This testimony suggests why his lawyers could have been on a hiding to nothing from the start.
Under cross-examination Fox suggested there were contexts in which the phrase “I hate black people” was not racist.
He said: “If a man is just released from a Ugandan jail where he’s been gang-raped by several men and he walks out and goes: ‘I hate black people’, it’s a sort of understandable response.”
Asked whether it was racist to say “Black people in the UK should go home”, Fox said: “Depends on what context”.
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