Judge grants interim injunction against litigant over TikTok harassment of lawyers

A judge has granted an interim injunction against a litigant in person over his harassment of a solicitor and a barrister. Kayleigh Thorne and Adele Nicola Rainsford, ‘relatively junior' practitioners, sought an extension of the injunction against David Protheroe-Beynon, who is ‘embroiled’ in ongoing litigation in the Family Court.

Thorne, of Venters Solicitors, has conduct of the family court case while Rainsford was instructed by Venters to represent their client in the family proceedings at two hearings but had no further involvement.

The judgment in Kayleigh Thorne & Anor v David Protheroe-Beynon said Protheroe-Beynon was ‘deeply concerned about the course that the family proceedings are taking’ and ‘blames the claimants for this’. Civil proceedings issued by Protheroe-Beynon against both lawyers had been struck out as totally without merit. He had also ‘begun making his accusations publicly via videos uploaded to TikTok’.

Deputy High Court judge Aidan Eardley KC said: ‘[The claimants’] primary concern…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.’

Referring to the solicitor’s case, the judge found the emails sent by Protheroe-Beynon to Thorne were ‘good evidence of the defendant’s attitude to the first claimant and his likely future conduct if not restrained’. Considering the TikTok videos, which Protheroe-Beynon was ordered to take down under the requirements of a previous interim injunction, the judge said a trial judge would be likely to find the ‘publications…would cross the threshold of seriousness set by the law of harassment’.

He found the barrister’s position ‘somewhat stronger’ as two of the emails ‘are threatening in themselves’ and the TikTok videos accuse her of ‘dishonesty and professional misconduct in very bald terms’.

Protheroe-Beynon’s case, that his conduct did not cross the line into harassment or was reasonable in the circumstances, was ‘unlikely to succeed’ on present evidence, the judge said. ‘It is much more likely, on present evidence, that the defendant will be found to be someone pursuing a personal vendetta against the claimants rather than engaged in some public interest exercise.’

Granting an interim injunction until trial, the judge said: ‘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…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.'