On the 3 November, Mr Justice Nicklin handed down his judgment in PPT v Independent Television News and Another KB-2026-003646. As at the 10 November, we are now allowed to report that PPT is in fact David Walliams, the television celebrity.
The defendant media companies had conducted an investigation into allegations concerning the claimant's conduct towards a number of individuals and they proposed to publish their findings. In May 2026, the defendants notified the claimant of the substance of the allegations against him. The claimant denied the allegations and said that he could not endure the adverse publicity. He also said that he wanted to take his own life. He was admitted voluntarily to a psychiatric hospital and in July 2026, whilst receiving inpatient treatment, he attempted to commit suicide. Shortly before the hearing of his injunction, he was compulsorily admitted for psychiatric assessment and treatment.
The claimant sought an injunction to prevent publication. He said that the notification and prospect of publication of the allegations had caused a serious deterioration in his mental health, and that his relationship with his son would be seriously damaged. Therefore, publication would be incompatible with the protection afforded to him by Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. He also sought an injunction under the court’s own inherent jurisdiction.
It was agreed that the court was not required to decide whether the allegations against the claimant were true.
Nicklin J said that open justice was a fundamental constitutional principle and an aspect of the rule of law. The ordinary position was that hearings should take place in public, the parties were named, and the evidence, submissions, judgments and orders upon which the court acts would publicly accessible. However, this principle was not absolute. The court could withhold or anonymise the identity of a party or witness, where it was strictly necessary in the interests of justice.
The parties had agreed that the claimant be assessed by a Single Joint Expert (a psychiatrist) within the injunction proceedings. That psychiatrist had produced a substantive report in September 2026, in which he identified serious mental vulnerability and an elevated risk of suicide and self-harm. His opinion was that, were the court to permit publication, the anticipation of publication and publication itself would produce a very substantial increase in the risk of psychiatric deterioration, suicidal ideation and suicidal acts.
Nicklin J considered the psychiatric and other evidence. Although the claimant was at risk of suicide and publication would cause a very substantial increase in that risk, his stated intentions did not establish that suicide was inevitable. Publication while the claimant remained in hospital would be significantly safer in terms of reducing the likelihood of a successful suicide.
The court also had the equitable power to restrict publication to protect life or physical safety. Past decisions required careful analysis because some concerned the conduct and reporting of court proceedings, some concerned the protection of confidential identities, but most concerned risks of violence from third parties rather than suicide.
In relation to Article 2, this imposed upon the state a negative obligation not intentionally to take life and as well as positive obligations to protect life. The risk to the claimant certainly satisfied the 'real and immediate' threshold required for the purposes of that Article. However, the next question was whether the risk fell within an operational obligation borne by the court to restrain the proposed publications. At present the claimant was compulsorily detained in hospital and it was the hospital, which had assumed responsibility for the very risk with which Article 2 was concerned. The evidence established that the hospital could provide significant protection for the claimant. The operational duty under Article 2 did not require the state to guarantee that suicide would not occur. Therefore, the claim based on Article 2 must be dismissed.
In relation to Article 3, this provided that no one should be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Nicklin J would reject this claim also. The proposed journalism did not constitute 'treatment' of the claimant by the state for the purposes of Article 3, as publication was the act of private media organisations.
Read more
There was a 'juridical' problem with the claimant’s injunction. Section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 conferred a broad power to grant injunctions where it appeared just and convenient to do so. The claimant did not advance a claim in breach of confidence, misuse of private information, harassment, defamation or any other recognised domestic cause of action against the defendants. His claim depended directly upon the proposition that the court was obliged by Articles 2 and 3 to restrain publication. Those Articles could not of themselves create a sufficient juridical basis for an injunction against private parties where no breach of confidence or other domestic cause of action was available.
In relation to Article 8, this was concerned with the state’s protection of the claimant’s private and family life. Nicklin J would reject the Article 8 claim, principally because (as with Articles 2 and 3 above) the claimant had not identified a proper domestic juridical basis for the injunction sought. No claim in defamation, breach of confidence, data protection or any other recognised domestic cause of action had been pursued. The proposed publication would be the act of private media organisations. Article 8 did not itself create a free-standing cause of action by which one private person might restrain another. Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 required the court to act compatibly with Convention rights when exercising its jurisdiction, but it did not confer a jurisdiction or cause of action which the court did not otherwise possess.
Nicklin J considered the issue of competing human rights. These included the defendants' Article 10 rights to investigate and publish, the Article 10 rights of their sources to communicate their experiences and the right of the public to receive information and ideas on matters of public interest. Insofar as the proposed publications provide a means by which sources wish to communicate their own experiences, their Article 8 interests in personal autonomy might also be engaged.
The proposed publications concerned serious allegations about the conduct of a prominent person and the alleged use of status, influence and access in dealings with women and girls. The subject matter included alleged abuse of power, sexual misconduct and inappropriate conduct towards younger or vulnerable persons. Those were matters capable of making a significant contribution to public debate.
The public interest was not exhausted merely because there is already a general public debate about abuse of power or misconduct by prominent people. Journalism contributed to such debates through the investigation and reporting of particular facts and experiences. The claimant's prominence was relevant, although it did not deprive him of his Article 8 rights. Those Article 8 rights did not, however, remove the public interest relied upon by the defendants.
The defendants had undertaken a prolonged and extensive investigation. They had obtained accounts from numerous sources and had sought corroborative and contradictory material, repeatedly tested the principal accounts and subjected the proposed publications to editorial and legal scrutiny. The likely consequences of publication were nevertheless relevant to Article 10 proportionality. Those consequences weighed very heavily against publication. The defendants' rights were also accompanied by duties and responsibilities, including the obligation to act responsibly and to take account of the foreseeable harm that publication might cause. However, Nicklin J would not accept that the consequences removed the public interest in the proposed publications.
Finally, Nicklin J considered the issue of proportionality. The injunction sought would constitute an exceptionally serious interference with the rights engaged on the other side. It would prohibit the defendants from publishing the results of their investigations into allegations of serious wrongdoing by a prominent individual. It would also prevent the sources whose accounts formed part of those investigations from communicating their experiences to the public through the defendants, thereby interfering with their Article 10 rights and, insofar as they sought to tell their own stories, with the interests in personal autonomy protected by Article 8.
Allowing for the profound interference with the claimant's physical and psychological integrity and family life, Nickin J was not satisfied that Article 8 required the suppression of the proposed publications. The claimant’s son's interests did not alter that conclusion. Whilst there were grave consequences for him if the claimant's mental health deteriorated, or he was detained in hospital or he died, the court lacked the direct and individualised evidence required to assess his position with the necessary intensity.
The availability of psychiatric treatment and protective measures was also relevant because that meant (as with Article 2) that the state was taking measures directed towards protecting the claimant’s life, psychological integrity and capacity to maintain his relationships. Article 8 did not require the court to eliminate every source of psychiatric distress by imposing a prior restraint upon the lawful activities of private parties.
The claimant’s injunction would be dismissed.
Malcolm Johnson is head of abuse claims at Lime Solicitors, London
