Image: Crystal (Colin Seymour) in season 1 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK (BBC).
Earlier this year, London drag artist Crystal – real name Colin Seymour – successfully sued right-wing actor Laurence Fox for libel alongside former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake.
The case returned to the High Court this week to determine consequences of the ruling, with the court being told Fox should be paying ‘six-figure sums’ in damages to both Seymour and Blake.
What was Crystal’s lawsuit about?
Laurence Fox is a right-wing actor and Reclaim Party founder. He was sued for libel after an argument on X (formerly Twitter) about a Black History Month display at UK supermarket Sainsbury’s – during which Fox called Seymour and Blake ‘paedophiles’.
In January, Justice Collins Rice ruled in favour of Blake and Seymour, dismissing all of Fox’s counter-claims.
Damages and consequences
Lorna Skinner KC, the barrister for Blake and Seymour, asked the High Court for damages for the pair. She also request an order that would require Fox to publish a summary of the judge’s decision of libel onto his Twitter/X account, and an injunction to stop Fox from repeating the libellous tweets.
Skinner told the court that both her clients deserve “six-figure sums” in damages from Fox, and that suggestions they should only receive a modest amount in damages was “nonsense”.
“The peculiar feature of an allegation like this [is] that somebody does not need to be convinced of the truth of it to shun and avoid a person.”
She noted that the allegations caused both Seymour and Blake “considerable upset”, and asked the Court to “take into account the distress, hurt and humiliation that the defamatory publication caused”.
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The hearing is set to conclude later this week.
