KB-2025-003193 - [2025] EWHC 2642 (KB)

The interim injunctive relief claimed on the basis of AXB’s misuse of private information claim is as follows:

“7.

Until further order of this Court, the Defendants, whether by themselves or their agents or otherwise shall not, whether on social media, by broadcast, by written publication or otherwise, publish or cause to be published any statement, image or other material which:

(…)

(b)

discloses or threatens to disclose the Claimant’s home address, personal telephone number, photographs or other images of her child, personal communications or correspondence including emails and direct messages, or any personal information relating to her or her family.”

The test imposed by section 12 of the Human Rights Act applies to this as well. The enhanced requirements of the rule in Bonnard v Perryman do not apply.

So far as the underlying cause of action is concerned, the principles are well established: see Campbell v MGN [2004] UKHL 22 at paras 12-20; In re S (A Child) [2004] UKHL 47 at para 17; Murray v Express Newspapers Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 446, [2009] Ch 481, at paras 24, 35-36 and 40-41; and Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers [2021] 4 WLR 35 at para 31. The claimant must, first, show that she enjoys a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of the information in question. If she does, the court must engage in intense scrutiny of the rights in question and determine whether, on the one hand, the privacy rights of the claimant should yield to the rights of the defendant and others to the free flow of information or, on the other hand, whether the claimant’s rights should prevail over those of others. The competing rights are of inherently equal value. The answer is determined by the yardsticks of necessity and proportionality.

The second defendant has offered an undertaking to the court in the terms of paragraph 7(b) of the draft order. She has also offered an undertaking from her son the first defendant in the same terms, which can be recorded in the order although it cannot be a formal undertaking to the court since he is not present or legally represented and has not consented to it in advance of the hearing.

I am satisfied that the evidence filed by the claimant justifies an order against the third defendant in this respect. It alleges that the third defendant has posted her home address and telephone number in a video which had 46,000 views; apparently by showing a letter addressed to her from the Trade Marks Registry. It also alleges that the third defendant has posted images of her child (although this appears to be because he visited her public Instagram account which includes photographs of her child). The “personal information relating to… her family” covered by the draft order appears, from her evidence, to consist of phone numbers of her mother, father and step mother, although there is no direct evidence that any of this was published by the third defendant or any other defendant. It is not clear from the evidence what specific publication of the “personal communications or correspondence including emails and direct messages” referred to in the draft order can be proved against any defendant, except that during Video A the third defendant shows the first defendant and the claimant emailing each other about money allegedly owed to her. There is also WhatsApp messaging between the claimant and the first defendant.

I will make an order which is more tightly drafted and proportionate than the one claimed, but which is otherwise substantially in the same terms, as follows:

“Until further order of this Court, the Third Defendant, whether by himself or his agents or otherwise shall not, whether on social media, by broadcast, by written publication or otherwise, publish or cause to be published any statement, image or other material which:

discloses or threatens to disclose the Claimant’s home address, personal telephone number, photographs or other images of her child, or personal communications or correspondence which are not already in the public domain, save for the purposes of litigation, or taking legal advice.”

This order will be made against the third defendant. The undertakings from the second defendant and, informally, from the first defendant, should be in the same limited and specific terms.