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Wednesday 7 April 2021

Laurence Fox Lawsuit Gets Expensive

He may be attracting favourable publicity to his bid to become London Mayor - a campaign which will, with the certainty of night following day, develop not necessarily to his advantage - but former minor thesp Laurence Fox has already made one seriously unwise judgment, and a potentially ruinously expensive one.

Lozza could soon be a big loser

Last October, after Fox had gone off the end of the pier in no style at all at supermarket giant Sainsbury’s, when the latter had committed the heinous crime of advertising their commitment to being inclusive and non-discriminatory, he attracted severely adverse comment from a number of individuals. His response was to smear three of them as paedophiles. As a result, two of the three instructed lawyers.

As Zelo Street pointed out at the time, “After Simon Blake [of Stonewall] passed adverse comment on his actions, he snapped back ‘Pretty rich coming from a paedophile’. A Tweeter backing Black Lives Matter [Crystal from Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK] called him a snowflake as well as a racist, which resulted in the response ‘Says the paedophile’”.

Both those individuals then instructed Mark Lewis of Patron Law to pursue claims for defamation. Also, actress Nicola Thorp concluded that Fox was “unequivocally, publicly and undeniably a racist”, to which Lozza responded “Any company giving future employment to Nicola Thorpe [sic] or providing her with a platform does so with the complete knowledge that she is unequivocally, publicly and undeniably a paedophile”.

Moreover, Fox was warned by the Secret Barrister what the possible consequences of his accusations could involve. Worse, Fox’s smear of Blake and Crystal resulted in pile-ons from The Great Man’s followers, which will be an aggravating factor in any action. Now has come news not only that Ms Thorp has joined the action, but that the lawsuit has proceeded as far as the High Court, where the claims were filed earlier this month.

Mark Lewis - he won't lose this one

Why has it taken almost seven months for the lawsuits to proceed? Simples. Fox will almost certainly have been given the chance to make a suitable apology and pay a sum in damages, along with Lewis’ costs. That the actions have proceeded this far suggests he has declined to do that, or has declined to make the apology demanded of him.

If that is the case, Fox has been unwise in the extreme. Now that a defamation action has been filed at the High Court, the cost to him is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, rather than a few tens. There’s no chance of his pretending he didn’t make the “paedophile” smears - they’ve all been screen shotted and saved.

And if Lewis, who is most likely taking the instructions on a no-win, no-fee basis, has succeeded in getting insurance cover for his latest trio of clients, that too will point to Fox having to pay up. And the later the paying up occurs, the more expensive it gets.

Laurence Fox is going to discover that his freedom of speech remains unconstrained. His problem is that he does not have freedom from its consequences. He might usefully consider what happened to pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins. Say sorry, Lozza.


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18 comments:

AndyC said...

There is always something hugely satisfying in seeing the likes of Fox having to face the consequences of their stupid actions. Do you think it might affect his mayoral ambitions in any way? Not that he had a snowball in hell's chance in the first place of course.

Mr Larrington said...

Last time I saw an opinion poll on the race for mayor of London's famous London it had Sadiq Khan about thirty percentage points ahead of Shaun Bailey, the Greens' Sian Berry in third slightly ahead of the Lib-Dems' Luisa Porritt and the assorted Gammon, single-issue loons, joke comedy candidates and people with more money than sense on about two-thirds of four-fifths of [“not very much at all” – Ed.]

Mr Larrington said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Talk Morris said...

The joy of seeing Foc squirm...hell yes.

The agony of seeing Mark Lewis win...I can bare it, this time.

Andy McDonald said...

I suspect that he never intended to win the mayoralty - his candidacy is, I suspect, more about moving the goalposts on what's considered fair play in politics. Shifting the Overton window a little further to the right.

What interests me is a) who is bankrolling him, and b) what they want out of it. B is sort of answered in the first paragraph. Meanwhile, Fox gets to play the martyr sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and, erm, blatantly libellous statements accusing people of one of the worst things one could be accused of being.

David said...

Lewis v Fox? A tough one. Think I'll stay neutral.

Jonathan said...

Fox is just another rightwing pro am grifter who uses gullible people to further inflate his ego.
He'll be passing round the cap on Twitter and elsewhere for his fans to cough up just like Tommieee...

Givem his acting career going nowhere fast, Fox has to get the attention somewhere.

Anonymous said...

Not very Foxy, then.

More like a loony hamster in a wheel.

Darren G said...

He is following the Tommy Robinson path

Lets it go to court, he loses, he then sqweams to his followers about cancel culture, woke, etc, and then asks for donations

Probably ends up with more money in donations than is required to be paid out.

Gareth Davies said...

One of his sponsors is Steve Browett arch brexiteer and train nut. Also unfortunately, a director of Crystal Palace

James said...

Fox is a tool who bangs on about FREEDOM but does not understand FREEDOM means taking responsibility for one's actions. I hope the twat gets his arse handed to him for slurring these men and women. Calling them 'paedophiles' as a response is something a child would do. Its not a good look if you want to run for a position of leadership like Mayor of London !

Neville said...

Why is everyone having a go at Laurence Fox? Surely the record of Sadiq Khan as London mayor should be under the greatest of scrutiny.

MikeD said...

I also believe Fox's exposure to damages will be limited and his costs may be absorbed by the very rich Brexit Express man Jeremy Hoskins, sole funder of Reason, who has already described Lawrence as 'admirable and courageous'. He'll just see it as the cost of pursuing the kind of fake, socially divisive culture wars that keep collectivism at bay.

John O'Connell said...

I love that phrase "a campaign which will, with the certainty of night following day, develop not necessarily to his advantage"

That latter part, for non-historians, is what the Japanese Emperor told his subjects as they surrendered to USA in 1945.

Anonymous said...

Er... He's a racist moron who goes around baselessly accusing people of being paedos. What other information do you require?

Mr Larrington said...

“Laurence Fox says ‘paedophile’ is ‘meaningless and baseless’ insult” - from https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/westminster-news/laurence-fox-on-london-mayoral-vote-7880366.

So that's alright then.

AndyC said...

I've just seen his 'Please vote for me' mayoral campaign video come up on Youtube. When I say seen I mean it appeared and I stopped it immediately and flagged it as 'Never show me this again.'

Land of Hopeless Tories said...

@17:21
"Boris Johnson has been accused of repeatedly ignoring expert advice on the viability of his so-called vanity projects as London mayor, leaving taxpayers with a bill of nearly £1bn and rising."
The Guardian - 16 July 2019