Libel claim against Matt Hancock thrown out

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In April last year at the High Court, Mrs Justice Collins Rice said she believed there were "compelling reasons for further investigation at trial" and refused Hancock's attempt to have the claim thrown out.

Earlier this year, Hancock appealed against that decision and Lord Justice Warby, sitting with Lady Justice King and Lady Justice Whipple at the Court of Appeal, said in a judgment on Wednesday that Mrs Justice Collins Rice had "erred in law".

"The Holocaust was a deliberate genocidal campaign to eradicate an entire people for motives of ethnic or religious prejudice. The Covid vaccine rollout was not," the judge said.

"On the undisputed facts it was, at least in part, a benevolent public health programme with the aim of saving lives."

He added that Bridgen's post "did not suggest that the vaccine rollout was worse than the Holocaust, but it did expressly suggest some form of comparability" and that it suggested the vaccines were a "crime against humanity".

Hancock was granted a summary judgment – a legal step which ends the claim in his favour without a trial.

Afterwards he said it was a case that "should never have been brought" and that "people must be free to state their own opinions without fear of libel action".

"I was right to call out what I clearly saw were anti-vax and antisemitic conspiracy theories, and this judgment reaffirms that right," he added.

Posting on X after the judgment, Bridgen said the three judges at the hearing in May were "clearly thinking about declaring me the winner".

He added: "Yet nine weeks later that same panel produced a unanimous written judgment in which they found against me on every single point, thus handing the victory to Mr Hancock without a trial, and labelling one of my arguments 'egregious', a point not put to my legal team at the oral hearing.

"It is hard to understand why the written judgment does not reflect what took place at the oral hearing."

Bridgen said he would be seeking advice to see if he could take the case to the Supreme Court.

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