Nikoletta Read v Claudio di Giovanni & Ors

An interim injunction requires a real threat or sufficiently strong risk of the conduct sought to be restrained. The claimant must also satisfy the threshold applicable to the cause of action, including the requirement under Human Rights Act 1998, section 12(3), that publication is likely to be restrained at trial. In defamation and malicious falsehood claims, the rule in Bonnard v Perryman imposes an additional obstacle where truth is credibly asserted. Delay, lack of evidence of serious harm, and the absence of a continuing risk may independently justify refusal. A court deciding an interim application does not determine the ultimate merits.

The claimant brought claims in libel, malicious falsehood and harassment concerning blackmail threats and a website containing allegedly defamatory statements about her. She also advanced submissions based on misuse of private information, although that cause of action was not pleaded in the Claim Form. Earlier without-notice applications had been refused or made subject to service directions. At the hearing only the claimant and the second defendant appeared.

The claimant sought prohibitory and mandatory injunctions against publication, operation of the website, further demands or threats, and related conduct. The central questions were whether there was a sufficient threat of future conduct, whether the statutory and common-law thresholds for interim relief were met, and whether delay and the balance of convenience supported an injunction.

1. Application refused. The court stressed that the decision was based on incomplete evidence and did not determine whether the underlying claims would succeed at trial.
2. For an interim prohibitory injunction, the claimant must first show that the defendant threatens, or presents a real and sufficiently strong risk of, the conduct sought to be restrained. The claimant must then satisfy the threshold applicable to the cause of action, show that damages are inadequate, and establish that the balance of convenience favours relief. Delay may provide an additional discretionary ground for refusal: Linklaters LLP v Mellish [2019] EWHC 177 (QB).
3. Because publication would engage freedom of expression, section 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 required a likelihood that publication should not be allowed at trial. That ordinarily meant more likely than not: Cream Holdings Ltd v Banerjee [2004] UKHL 44, [2005] 1 AC 253.
4. The claimant was unlikely, on the evidence, to establish misuse of private information. The social-media exchange and photographs appeared anodyne and non-intimate, while the commercial information was unlikely to fall within private life. The privacy threshold was therefore not met: Prismall v Google UK Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 1516, [2025] KB 663.
5. The defamation claim lacked evidence of serious reputational harm, including evidence of readership, prominence, adverse consequences or explained financial loss. The malicious-falsehood claim similarly lacked the particulars required to identify the nature and mechanism of the alleged loss: Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd [2020] AC 612; Tesla Motors Ltd v BBC [2013] EWCA Civ 152.
6. Past conduct might establish harassment, but there was no present threat or sufficiently strong risk that harassment would resume. The harassment threshold was therefore not met. The court also declined to decide the suggested blackmail exception to the libel rule in LJY v Persons Unknown [2017] EWHC 3230 (QB), [2018] EMLR 19.
7. The application was additionally refused for delay. Most potential reputational harm was likely to have occurred already, and the prospect of further significant irreparable harm pending trial was too remote.