'We won' Crystal toasts libel victory over Laurence Fox
The Guardian|January 31, 2024
The drag artist Crystal may have marked Monday by winning an emphatic libel victory against the rightwing activist Laurence Fox, but celebrations after the judgment were muted.
'We won' Crystal toasts libel victory over Laurence Fox

That was partly thanks to the date - "I'm trying to do dry January" - and partly because the performer had agreed to appear on Sky News yesterday morning, which meant a 3am start to fit in two hours of meticulous drag makeup.

Crystal, real name Colin Seymour, and Simon Blake, a former Stonewall trustee, sued the former actor after he called each of them a paedophile on X in October 2020. In response, Fox countersued Seymour, Blake and Nicola Thorp, a former Coronation Street actor, saying all three had defamed him by calling him racist in tweets of their own, which were in response to comments he made criticising support for Black History Month.

The tangle of claims and counterclaims may have been complex, but the judgment was clear.

Fox's comments about Blake and Seymour were "seriously harmful, defamatory and baseless", Mrs Justice Collins Rice said.

This story is from the January 31, 2024 edition of The Guardian.

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This story is from the January 31, 2024 edition of The Guardian.

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