Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Blake v Fox: High Court (England and Wales) rejects 'mere abuse' argument—'racist' is opinion; 'paedophile' is factual allegation; intention irrelevant; honest opinion requires stated basis

Published on: 02 March 2023

Published by a LexisNexis TMT expert

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Article summary

Blake and others v Fox [2022] EWHC 3542 (KB)

What are the practical implications of this case?

The court stressed that, in defamation, the central question is the meaning conveyed by the words complained of; the speaker’s intention does not matter. Here, the judge drew a clear line between ‘opinion’ and ‘mere abuse’, finding that describing someone as a racist is an opinion (albeit forcefully put), whereas calling someone a paedophile is not. Whether a statement is opinion is crucial if a party seeks to invoke the defence of honestly held opinion, and it is often challenging to separate opinion from a (false) allegation. The court also underlined that truly extrinsic material cannot be relied upon to prove that a publication was, or contained, an expression of opinion. That assessment must be derived from the intrinsic material within the publication itself, including, for online pieces, any hyperlinks embedded in the text.

What was the background?

Following a chain of tweets in which each of the three claimants labelled the defendant a racist, and the defendant replied by branding each claimant a paedophile, the claimants brought libel proceedings against the defendant arising from the tweets exchanged between the parties as described...

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