The rule against prior restraint and difficulty in obtaining interim injunctions in defamation claims

In CF & L Limited & Others v Kieran Fraser & Others [2025] EWHC 3350 (KB), the High Court refused applications for interim injunctions in defamation, harassment, and misuse of private information. The judgment offers a useful reminder of the relatively limited availability of interim relief where freedom of expression is in play.

Background to the dispute

The Claimants (CF&L Limited, iSpy Group Limited, and their director Deborah Morris) operate a business supplying water coolers and coffee machines to companies in Essex.

A disagreement arose from a contract to supply a water cooler to BJM Mot Limited, owned by Mr Brendan Murray. In September 2025, an employee of BJM, Mr Kieran Fraser, attempted to cancel the contract. On 8 September 2025, Mr Fraser emailed CF&L’s accounts department at Mr Murray’s request asking to cancel the contract. Ms Kelly Baker, the Head of Legal at CF&L, responded to say that as he was not the contracting party (i.e. Mr Murray), they would not deal with him. Mr Fraser then called iSpy and spoke to Ellie Smith and Gemma Franklin. Following this call, Mr Fraser published two highly critical one-star reviews on Trustpilot and one on Google.

CF&L sent a cease-and-desist letter that same day demanding (amongst other things) removal of the reviews and an apology. Mr Fraser refused, asserting that his comments were true, honest opinion, and/or in the public interest.

The Claimants issued proceedings in September 2025, advancing claims in libel, harassment, and misuse of private information.

The injunction application

The application for interim injunction was heard by Deputy High Court Judge Vassall-Adams KC on 15 December 2025.

The general test for interim injunctions was set out by the House of Lords in American Cyanamid Co (No1) v Ethicon Ltd [1975] UKHL 1, which established the following guidelines for the Court to consider:

Is there a serious issue to be tried?
Adequacy of damages
The balance of convenience between the parties

However, there are extra hurdles where an injunction may interfere with the right to freedom of expression.

Firstly, the Court must also have regard to section 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (‘HRA 1998’), which provides that injunctive relief is not “to be granted so as to restrain publication before trial unless the court is satisfied that the applicant is likely to establish that publication should not be allowed.”

Libel

Where a claimant seeks to restrain publication of defamatory material before trial, the court must also apply the test in Bonnard v Perryman [1891] 2 Ch 269: an injunction will not be granted if the defendant’s proposed defence has any real prospect of success; only if the defence is “bound to fail” will an injunction be granted.

In short, if the Defendant has any real chance of the defending the claim, no injunction will be granted.

The judge held:

No evidence of serious financial loss was provided (as required by section 1(2) of the Defamation Act 2013)
Mr Fraser’s defences of truth and honest opinion were not bound to fail. He referred to other similar one‑star reviews which made the same or similar allegations as Mr Fraser had done.
The Claimants’ witness evidence did not address the factual basis of the allegations and did not undermine Mr Fraser’s proposed defences, and therefore provided nothing upon which the judge could conclude the defence was bound to fail.
The allegations of “criminality” could arguably be understood to be pejorative, rather than literal, allegations and may well constitute opinion.

The judge concluded that he was “wholly unpersuaded” that the threshold for an interim libel injunction had been met.

Harassment

The Claimants relied on:

The cancellation email,
A phone call to iSpy staff, and
Publication of a piece of health information in the Google review.

Harassment is both a civil wrong and a criminal offence (s1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997). The factors a claimant is required to prove were set out by Simon J in Dowson v Chief Constable of Northumbria [2009] EWHC 907 (QB):

Targeted at the Claimant;
Calculated (in an objective sense) to cause alarm or distress;
Oppressive and unacceptable, and
A course of conduct occurring at least twice.

A line is to be drawn between conduct which is unattractive and unreasonable and conduct which has been described in various ways: ‘torment’ of the victim, ‘of an order which would sustain criminal liability’.”

When the harassment relates to publication, the Court must have regard to the Defendant’s Article 10 rights and conduct the (so-called) ultimate balancing test between the Claimant’s Article 8 rights and the Defendant’s Article 10 rights when considering whether to award an injunction (see Hayden v Dickenson [2020] EWHC 3291 (QB) at [44](viii)).

As above, the court was required to consider s12(3) of the HRA 1998 given that the case related to a matter of publication – i.e. the Claimant has to persuade the court that they are more likely than not to succeed at trial.

The judge held that the email correspondence did not surmount the threshold and added that “A bit of rudeness must be tolerated as part and parcel of everyday life. It is not the role of the High Court to enforce standards of politeness by injunction”. Furthermore, the email correspondence was not targeted and could not fulfil the conditions in Dowson.

As for the phone call, the judge held it could not amount to harassment because (amongst other things), the words had been expressly directed against the company, not the individual, and one phone call could not constitute a course of conduct. It was, the Judge said, ‘firmly in the camp of everyday irritations’.

Misuse of private information: no real risk of further publication

The private information in question was reference to a health condition of the Third Claimant, that had been referred to in one of the reviews. The Court noted that the Third Claimant had referred to this condition in her dealings with the defendant and not indicated that it should be kept confidential. Whilst it was information in which individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the court found that, as the director was not named, and Mr Fraser agreed to remove the information as a gesture of goodwill, there was no risk of future publication so the test for an injunction was not satisfied.

Conclusion

This case serves as a useful reminder that interim injunctions which infringe upon freedom of expression are extremely hard to obtain and should be approached with caution. Unless a defence is bound to fail, courts will not restrain publication of defamatory material before trial, and the courts will not intervene in matters which constitute everyday rudeness rather than unacceptable conduct. It is therefore crucial that specialist legal advice is obtained before seeking an interim injunction. Parties who fail to take, and heed, such advice are at a high risk of being on the end of a bruising costs order.

Since this judgment that the Claimants have discontinued their claim.