Kayleigh Thorne & Anor v David Protheroe-Beynon

On 1 May 2026, at a “return date” hearing, I decided to extend interim injunctive relief in this case until trial or further order in somewhat different terms from the injunctions initially granted without notice. These are my reasons.

The Defendant is embroiled in litigation in the Family Court under the Children Act 1989 which is ongoing (the Family Proceedings). The opposing party in the Family Proceedings is represented by Venters Solicitors (Venters). The First Claimant is a relatively junior solicitor in that firm who has conduct of the case. The Second Claimant is a relatively junior barrister who was instructed by Venters to represent their client in the Family Proceedings at two hearings before the Family Court in June and July 2024. She has had no further involvement in the case.

The Defendant is deeply concerned about the course that the Family Proceedings are taking. He blames the Claimants for this. He believes that they have behaved unprofessionally, even dishonestly. He has made those allegations to them in correspondence. He has made complaints to their professional regulators who, to date, have declined to take any action on his complaints. He has issued civil proceedings against them which have been struck out as totally without merit. And he has filed contempt proceedings against them which, it appears, the court has refused to issue. Most recently he has threatened to “go public” with his allegations and has begun making his accusations publicly via videos uploaded to TikTok.

On 2 April 2026 the First Claimant sought an interim injunction on an urgent without notice basis. The injunction was granted by Obi J that day. On 16 April 2026 Steyn J granted an interim injunction in favour of the Second Claimant, again on an urgent without notice basis. The same day she held an inter partes hearing in respect of the future progress of the First Claimant’s claim and made two case management orders, directing a return date hearing for both injunctions and giving other directions.

The Claimants filed a Claim Form on or about 16 April 2026 but have not yet received a sealed copy from the Court. They have therefore been unable to comply with Steyn J’s order that they serve a sealed Claim Form by 4.30pm on 20 April 2026. I have extended time for service, since this does not appear to be the Claimants’ fault.

The Claimants have also prepared Particulars of Claim. The Particulars of Claim describe the Defendant’s alleged course of conduct amounting to harassment in generic terms under a number of thematic headings. This does not comply with the pleading requirements for a harassment claim based on publication. CPR 53 PD B para 10.3 stipulates that “The claimant must specify in the particulars of claim (in a schedule if necessary) the acts of the defendant alleged to constitute a course of conduct which amount to (and which were known or ought to have been known by the defendant to amount to) harassment, including specific details of any actual or threatened communications”. I have directed that the Claimants serve a schedule to the Particulars of Claim that complies with these requirements and have extended time for filing a defence or acknowledgment of service so that the Defendant has proper notice of the case against him before he is required to respond.

The harassment claim is intimately bound up with what has been going on in the Family Proceedings. This causes difficulties for all parties, but more so for the Defendant.

The Claimants included in the hearing bundle, as examples of allegedly harassing conduct by the Defendant, communications to them and others in the course of which he went into detail about documents filed, or actions taken in the course of, the Family Proceedings. The Defendant, for the purposes of the hearing, sent the court a full copy of the court file in the Family Proceedings and many other documents which referred in detail to documents filed in the Family Proceedings or hearings that have taken place in private in the Family Proceedings.

In an email that I caused to be sent to the parties in advance of the hearing, I said that I would not consider any documents from the Family Proceedings, or any other information which can usually only be disclosed with the Family Court’s permission, unless satisfied that the Family Court had given permission, or that no permission is in fact required to use that information in the present case.

Having considered the matter, it was clear to me that neither party was entitled to put before me any detailed information about the Family Proceedings without the permission of the Family Court and that such permission had not been obtained.

Family Court proceedings are conducted in private and it is usually a contempt of court to disclose information relating to them. See the Administration of Justice Act 1960 s12 and the helpful summary of its effect given by Munby J in Kelly v BBC [2001] Fam 59, 72. Without purporting to give an exhaustive explanation of the legal limits, he said that “It suffices for present purposes to say that, in essence, what section 12 protects is the privacy and confidentiality: (i) of the documents on the court file and (ii) of what has gone on in front of the judge in his courtroom.” The identity of the children who are the subject of any proceedings under the Children Act 1989 is separately protected under s97 of that Act.

A number of exceptions to the general prohibitions on disclosure are set out in the Family Procedure Rules (FPR) at 12.73-12.75 and the associated Practice Directions. FPR 12.75(1)(c) permits a party to communicate information relating to the proceedings “where necessary to enable that party to make and pursue a complaint against a person or body concerned in the proceedings”. Prior to the hearing, the Defendant had contended that this permitted him to disclose information from the Family Proceedings in defence of this claim for harassment. I do not agree. By seeking to resist this injunction and to defend the claim he is not “making” or “pursuing” a “complaint” against anyone. The language of the rule concerns the initiation of complaints; it does not extend to responding to civil claims brought by others. As for the Claimants, Ms Venters did not submit that a freestanding claim for harassment against a person concerned in family proceedings amounts to a “complaint” within the rule.

Accordingly, at the hearing I adhered to the approach I had outlined in my email to the parties and declined to take account of any material that, it appeared, had been placed before me without the permission of the Family Court where such permission was required. I felt able to consider general information about the nature and subject matter of the proceedings and, in general terms, the Defendant’s allegation that the Claimants had conducted themselves improperly, but I ignored detailed material alleging omissions or inaccuracies in documents filed in the Family Proceedings, or particular conduct by the Claimants at or in connection with hearings.

Consistently with this approach, I directed that any details of evidence filed, and hearings that had taken place, in the Family Proceedings should be withheld from the public in these harassment proceedings and should not be reported in connection with these proceedings. I considered that this derogation from the open justice principle was strictly necessary in order to avoid the usual rules of privacy that apply to family proceedings being undermined.

Ms Venters and the Defendant sought to comply dutifully with my direction that we should not delve in to the details of the Family Proceedings at the public hearing. There were occasional inadvertent lapses. These do not invalidate the derogations from open justice that I have put in place or render permissible the reporting of anything that was erroneously said in breach of my direction: see R v Times Newspapers Ltd [2007] EWCA Crim 1925, [2008] 1 WLR 234.

Because the Particulars of Claim are presently too vague, I required Ms Venters to identify clearly each act the Claimants relied upon to support their contention that the Defendant had already engaged in a course of conduct amounting to harassment, or was likely to do so if not restrained. This was essential so that the Defendant knew the case he had to respond to.

In respect of the First Claimant, Ms Venters identified the following.

First, Ms Venters showed me a large number of communications identified in and exhibited to the First Claimant’s own two witness statements and the two witness statements of Carly Fiander, Venters’ practice manager. These were either emails directly to the First Claimant, or cc’d to the First Claimant, or communications to others (such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority) which Ms Venters said were likely to come to the First Claimant’s attention. Some of these communications included specific details about the Family Proceedings which, in accordance with the approach I have explained above, I have ignored. However, Ms Venters also drew my attention to other features of these communications which she submits are harassing in nature or, in any event, indications of the Defendant’s likely future conduct towards the First Claimant, if not restrained. I note, in particular:

The First Claimant also relies on two of the Defendant’s TikTok videos:

As to the acts relied upon by the Second Claimant, Ms Venters referred me to (among other things):

Ms Venters submits, on behalf of both the Claimants, that a trial judge is likely to find that the Defendant has pursued a course of conduct amounting to harassment to which there is no defence (or will do so if not restrained) and that the trial judge is likely to impose final injunctive relief. She says that the balance of convenience favours the continuation of the present interim relief until those issues can be determined at trial. She points to the evidence that the Defendant’s conduct is already causing the Claimants considerable alarm and distress. She says that the evident purpose of the Defendant is to dissuade the First Claimant from continuing to act for the opposing party in the Family Proceedings and to dissuade the Second Claimant from doing so again (or to punish her for how she acted when instructed). She says that the allegations of misconduct etc all stem from the Defendant’s failure to understand the role of lawyers in litigation which is (subject to any overriding duties to the court) to represent the interests of their clients.

In clear, concise and courteous oral submissions, the Defendant submitted as follows:

The orders sought by the Claimants will infringe the Defendant’s right to freedom of expression that is protected by ECHR Art 10(1). The threshold test for an interim injunction in these circumstances is that set out in s12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998: the Claimants must satisfy me that they are likely to succeed in obtaining a permanent prohibitory injunction at trial, where “likely” ordinarily means “more likely than not”: Cream Holdings Ltd v Banerjee [2005] 1 AC 253 at [21].

If I were to find that the “nub” of the Claimants’ complaint is in fact their concern about damage to their reputations then I would be bound to apply the even more exacting threshold test that applies in defamation claims, often referred to as the test Bonnard v Perryman [1891] 2 Ch 269or the “defamation rule”. The fact that there is a reputational element to a claim is not decisive: the court has to ask itself what is the essential purpose of the application is: see Siddiqui v Aidiniantz [2019] EWHC 1321 (KB) at [90]-[97] (Warby J).

s1(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (PfHA) provides that a person must not pursue a course of conduct (a) which amounts to harassment of another and (b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other. And a person ought to know their course conduct amounts to harassment if a reasonable person in the possession of the same information would think it amounted to harassment. A course of conduct must involve conduct on at least two occasions.

The question of what amounts to harassment has been considered in a large number of appellate and first instance cases. In Hayden v Dickenson [2020] EWHC 3291 (QB) at [44] Nicklin J summarised the principles that can be extracted and his summary was approved by the Divisional Court in Scottow v Crown Prosecution Service [2020] EWHC 3421 (Admin), [2021] 1 WLR 1828. For the purposes of this case, a number of points are particularly important.

Harassment consists in a persistent and deliberate course of unacceptable and oppressive conduct, targeted at an individual. To qualify as such the conduct must reach a level of seriousness passing beyond the irritations, annoyances and upset that arise occasionally in everybody’s day-to-day dealings with other people. It must be of an order that would sustain criminal liability under s 2: Hayden principles (i) & (ii).

Harassment by publication will usually engage ECHR Article 10 and therefore the Court’s assessment must pay due regard to the importance of freedom of expression and the need for any restrictions upon the right to be necessary, proportionate and established convincingly: Hayden principles (vi)-(viii).

In a publication case, the harassing element is likely to come more from the manner in which the words are published than their content, and their truth or falsity is unlikely to be determinative. Repetition of material already in the public domain can qualify: Hayden principles (ix)-(xi).

The Court should take account of the extent to which the coverage complained of is repetitious and taunting, as opposed to being new, and prompted by some fresh newsworthy event. The imposition of liability in respect of coverage that falls into the latter category will be harder to justify: Sube v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2020] EWHC 1125 (QB), [2020] EMLR 25 at [106](2) (Warby J).

Where the publications are of journalistic material, nothing short of a conscious or negligent abuse of media freedom will justify a finding of harassment. Such cases will be rare and exceptional: Hayden principle (xii). Journalistic material “is to be identified by its subject matter, not its author, nor the process by which it comes to be published”: McNally v Saunders [2021] EWHC 2012 (QB), [2022] EMLR 3 at [74] (Chamberlain J). Blog posts and social media publications may therefore qualify in an appropriate case.

Section 1(3) sets out 3 defences that a defendant may rely on if a pf case of harassment is made out. The only relevant one for present purposes is s1(3)(c), “that in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable”. This raises some of the same issues as the threshold test for harassment, since a course of conduct is unlikely to amount to harassment unless it is at least prima facie unreasonable (see McNally at [86]). The test is objective: R v Sean Peter C [2001] EWCA Crim 1251. In a publication case it must be applied, like the test for harassment itself, in a manner that avoids disproportionate interference with a defendant’s ECHR Article 10 rights: Thomas v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 1233, [2002] EMLR 4 at [32]-[37].

Statements made in inter partes correspondence in the course of and for the purposes of civil proceedings will be immune from suit in ordinary civil claims (including harassment) unless they have no reference at all to the subject matter of the proceedings. Statements in such correspondence can only be considered as a part of a tortious course of conduct if they are wholly extraneous to, and have no reference to or connection with, the proceedings: Iqbal v Dean Manson Solicitors [2014] at [59]-[76] [2014[ EWHC 2418 (QB) (Warby J), (the Iqbal Principle) recently endorsed by the Court of Appeal in Titan Wealth Holdings Ltd v Okunola [2026] EWCA Civ 138.

I find that the applicable threshold test is that set out in s12(3) in the Human Rights Act 1998 and not the higher “defamation test”. The things the Defendant has published online are clearly defamatory of the Claimants at common law and the Claimants are understandably concerned in part about the reputational consequences for them if such matters remain online or are repeated. Nevertheless, their primary concern, as I understand it from their evidence, is simply to make these attacks on them stop (whether those attacks are by direct communication or by publishing information about them to others) so that they can carry on with their lives without being subjected to alarm and distress. The Claim Form and Particulars of Claim allege harassment only and expressly disavow any reliance on the law of defamation. No damages for injury to reputation (or at all) are sought.

On present evidence, I am satisfied that it is more likely than not that a trial judge will hold that further publications of the sort engaged in or threatened by the Defendant should not be allowed. I remind myself that I am not making findings of fact. My task is a predictive one based on the limited admissible evidence that is before me, which is incomplete and untested. I consider the position of each Claimant in turn.

As to the First Claimant:

As to the Second Claimant, her position is somewhat stronger because:

As to the Defendant’s case that his actual/threatened conduct did not cross the line into harassment, or was reasonable in the circumstances, I consider that, on present evidence, this is unlikely to succeed:

The applicable threshold test for continuation of the injunctions is satisfied but there are further matters to consider. In a freedom of expression case, the HRA 1998 s12(3) test replaces the first stage of the well-known American Cyanamid principles ([1975] AC 396) but it is still necessary to consider whether damages would be an adequate remedy and whether the balance of convenience favours the grant of an injunction pending trial.

Damages would obviously not be an adequate remedy in the circumstances. The Claimants do not in fact seek damages at trial. Their only concern is to be left alone by the Defendant.

In my judgement, the balance of convenience favours the grant of an injunction. On the evidence of the Claimants, the Defendant’s current activities and threats of further publication are causing them real and immediate alarm and distress. An interim injunction (in appropriate terms – which I shall come to) will not affect his ability to defend the Family Proceedings or limit his rights to make complaints about the Claimants to their regulators or the police. The Defendant accepts that, in terms of publication to the world at large, he can only make generic allegations of misconduct. He is also not presently in a position to show the Court evidence that might support such allegations, even if expressed in the form of an opinion. An interim injunction would therefore interfere with his ECHR Art 10 rights to only a limited extent and will be a proportionate interference given the ECHR Art 8 rights of the Claimants.

The Defendant invites me to decline to continue the injunctions because of the Claimants’ conduct of the proceedings, including on the grounds that they have not come to court with “clean hands”. He makes a litany of complaints, including (as I understand it) that the First Claimant invited Obi J to apply the wrong legal test when seeking her without notice injunction and submitted a draft order that did not accord with the Practice Guidance on Interim Non-disclosure Orders; that neither Claimant should have gone before the court on an without notice basis; that exculpatory evidence in the hearing bundle has been unjustifiably redacted, to his detriment; that another document in the hearing bundle has been unjustifiably included without redactions so as to expose the identity of the children involved in the Family Proceedings; and that the Claimants have refused to include in the hearing bundle relevant documents that the Defendant has submitted and ought to have been included.

I am satisfied that, one way or another, I have seen all the evidence that I can properly take account of at this stage in the proceedings. On the basis of that evidence, I am persuaded that there should be interim injunctive relief until trial in the terms I have directed. If the Claimants have fallen short in any of the ways alleged (as to which I make no findings) then that will be a matter that can be reflected in a costs order in due course. The Defendant’s allegations of procedural errors, even if they transpire to be well founded, are not sufficient to justify the refusal of an otherwise well-deserved injunction.

I made some changes to the draft order submitted by Ms Venters, and comment as follows.

First, I was initially concerned by the proposal that the Defendant should be prohibited from contacting the First Claimant at all. The First Claimant continues to have responsibility for the conduct of the Family Proceedings on behalf of Venters’ client and the Defendant, as a party to those proceedings acting in person, must have a line of communication with the opposing legal team. Ms Venters told me that a system would be put in place whereby Ms Fiander, the firm’s practice manager, would act as the sole point of contact, passing on relevant communications to the relevant fee earners. That strikes me as a sensible, pragmatic approach. I therefore made the order in the terms sought and take it to be the common understanding of the parties that communications pursuant to the mechanism Venters are putting in place will not be regarded as falling foul of the prohibition on “indirect” communication with the First Claimant.

Second, I declined to include in the injunction a prohibition on the Defendant publishing material from the Family Proceedings. So far as I am aware, he has not in fact published anything to the world at large that he is prohibited from publishing by reason of the law of contempt or s97 of the Children Act 1989. He appears to understand that he must not do so and cannot do so under the guise of reporting the present harassment proceedings (a point that I have made clear in my order). So, although he has (arguably) erred in placing documents from the Family Court file before me, there is no present threat of wider publication. And while it may sometimes be appropriate to grant an injunction that reinforces the general law of contempt or the criminal law, it is not appropriate in the present case. If the Defendant does disclose information or documents in breach of his obligations, the court best placed to deal with that is the Family Court, which has a full overview of the Family Proceedings, not the King’s Bench Division, which does not.

Third, I declined to include the proposed provision that the Defendant be prohibited from issuing any civil claims against the Claimants alleging professional misconduct. It is hard to see how any such claims could be pursued (the Claimants act for the opposing party in the Family Proceedings and do not owe the Defendant any duty of care). However, there is a carefully calibrated scheme for making “civil restraint orders” against vexatious litigants (see CPR Pt 3 PD C) depending on the gravity of their prior conduct and, even if a litigant is restrained, the scheme permits them to apply to a judge for permission to make a claim or application. The Claimants can apply for a civil restraint order if they consider that the threshold conditions are met. The order they presently seek would be more restrictive than the statutory scheme and is unjustified.

Fourth, Ms Venters faintly suggested that I should widen the relief sought in the draft order to include other legal professionals who are engaged in the Family Proceedings and who are now receiving the unwelcome attentions of the Defendant. I declined to do so. As I explain below, the Court has powers to control unacceptable conduct between parties in the course of litigation. However, the present application was advanced on the specific and narrow basis that the Defendant’s conduct, if not restrained, would amount to unlawful harassment of the two named Claimants. That is how I have approached it and it would have been unfair to the Defendant to consider some broader approach of which he had not had proper notice.

Fifth, I have included a proviso permitting the Defendant to continue to communicate with relevant regulators and the police. Whether either or both prohibitions should be included in a final injunction can be discussed at trial (there are both factual and legal questions that arise). For present purposes however, I consider that an interim restriction on such communications would be disproportionate. Regulators and the police deal with complaints in confidence and they have their own procedures for dismissing, or taking no further action on, complaints that appear to be meritless or vexatious.

Sixth, I have included a proviso making it clear that the Defendant is permitted to publish reports of the public hearing before me (and other public hearings in due course) as well as this judgment (and other public judgments in due course). That is, of course, subject to the withholding order and reporting restriction order that I have put in place in relation to the identity of the children who are the subject of the Family Proceedings and other details about the Family Proceedings. Those restrictions apply to everyone but, subject to observing those restrictions and like everyone else, the Defendant is free to report on public hearings and judgments in these harassment proceedings. That proviso, I believe, dispenses with an application dated 19 April 2026 that the Defendant had made seeking “To allow the publication of identities of all parties in these proceedings…”. The only parties in these (harassment) proceedings are the two Claimants and the Defendant. Those parties’ identities have never been withheld in these proceedings and my proviso, I hope, clarifies the position. I have not made any separate order on the Defendant’s application.

The threshold test for an interim injunction until trial is met and, in my discretion, I grant an injunction in the terms I have specified.

Ms Venters complained in strong terms about how the Defendant has acted in response to this harassment claim and the injunction applications. She says that, rather than co-operating in the agreement of a hearing bundle as directed by Steyn J, the Defendant has bombarded her firm and the court with a huge number of documents (more than 2000 pages) as well as aggressive emails. She says that the Defendant has also intensified and widened his attacks – now going after herself and her firm as well as the Claimants. She set out evidence of this in a supplementary bundle. The documents there include new complaints to the SRA and the BSB, complaints to the police, and communications indicating that the Defendant has now informed Private Eye that Ms Venters herself is the subject of a police investigation (whereas, in fact, there would appear to be no investigation and the Defendant has simply made a complaint to the police on the basis that she and the Claimants had not compiled the hearing bundle as he would have wished).

Parties, including litigants in person, are required to help the Court to further the overriding objective of dealing with cases justly and at proportionate cost: CPR 1.3. The Defendant has shown scant regard for this requirement to date. It took me an inordinate amount of time to plough through his many emails and attachments to identify the materials that he wanted me to consider at the hearing (many of which I ultimately felt obliged to disregard because they were provided in apparent breach of the confidentiality rules in the Family Court). I imagine that it has been a similarly draining experience for the Claimants and Ms Venters.

It may go beyond that. In Titan Wealth at [27]the Court of Appeal recognised that the Court has jurisdiction, in the interests of justice, to restrain any conduct by parties to litigation that is serious enough to threaten the integrity of its own process. The Claimants did not invite me to exercise this jurisdiction for now, but it is something that this Court and the Family Court will no doubt bear in mind going forward.

For the avoidance of doubt, although I have framed the injunction in a way that permits the Defendant to make further complaints to regulators or the police, I have not seen any admissible evidence that could reasonably support such complaints, either against the Claimants or against Ms Venters and her firm.