He also granted a permanent injunction preventing the publication of the recordings, and preventing the Defendant from harassing the Claimant by approaching or seeking to communicate with him other than through his solicitors, effectively continuing, on a permanent basis, the interim injunction which had been granted by Murray J on 6 September [] EWHC QB.
The Claimant is a former businessman and civil servant, who is in no sense a public figure. During the course of that relationship, the Defendant engaged in the covert recording of a BDSM session with the Claimant. The existence of the associated recordings later came to light and the Defendant gave three sets of undertakings, in return for financial payments, that he would deliver up all copies of the footage to the Claimant and not seek any further monetary payment.
However, a pattern of conduct developed over the following years where the Defendant would periodically communicate with the Claimant, requesting money and making threats to expose the Claimant publicly, in conduct which the Claimant alleged constituted blackmail. The current proceedings were prompted by renewed contact initiated by the Defendant in , the contents of which the Claimant submitted were openly threatening.
On 6 September , the Claimant obtained an interim non-disclosure order at a hearing at which the Defendant attended as a litigant in person. After the interim injunction was granted, the Claimant filed Particulars of Claim and the Defendant still acting in person filed a defective Defence, which failed to comply with the requirements set out in CPR The Claimant therefore issued an application seeking a strike out the Defence or, alternatively, requesting that summary judgment to be entered in his favour and that a permanent injunction be granted.
Due to the current pandemic, the hearing took place by telephone, with an initial successful application for the hearing to be held in private. Nicol J gave a public judgment, which was supplemented by a Confidential Annex distributed only to the parties. The judgment confirms various well-established legal principles in the areas of claim:. The first is that the interim relief was sought relying on the existence of pre-existing contractual undertakings, but the claim was not based on breach of contract.
