Thorne v Protheroe-Beynon: harassment injunctions, TikTok threats and the limits of litigation frustration

The High Court's Media and Communications List has upheld interim injunctive relief against a litigant in person who waged a sustained campaign of threatening correspondence and TikTok videos against the solicitor and barrister acting for his opponent in ongoing Children Act proceedings. In Kayleigh Thorne & Anor v David Protheroe-Beynon [2026] EWHC 1042 (KB), Deputy High Court Judge Aidan Eardley KC extended the injunctions until trial, finding the threshold under s12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 was met.

The defendant had become deeply aggrieved by the course of the family proceedings and attributed blame to the two claimants. Having failed to obtain redress through regulatory complaints, civil claims (struck out as totally without merit) and contempt proceedings, he turned to direct threats and public allegation. His emails to the first claimant — a junior solicitor at the instructed firm — included statements that she would be "destroyed", that he had "something much more creative and unpleasant planned", and that he had a "whole weekend" over Easter to release material to ITN and the Liverpool Echo before she could seek relief. The second claimant, a junior barrister who had appeared at just two hearings in 2024, received emails threatening to name her in TikTok videos as a "dishonest barrister" — videos that were subsequently published.

Eardley J applied the s12(3) threshold rather than the more stringent Bonnard v Perryman rule, accepting that the claim was framed in harassment alone, with no damages sought and no reliance on defamation. The primary aim, on the evidence, was to stop the conduct — not to vindicate reputation.

On the substantive harassment analysis, the court drew on the principles summarised in Hayden v Dickenson [2020] EWHC 3291 and endorsed in Scottow v CPS. The harassing quality of publication cases lies more in manner and frequency than in the truth or falsity of the allegations. The defendant's argument that his conduct was analogous to a critical online review of a dishonest tradesman was firmly rejected: this was a prolonged, escalating campaign with the avowed aim of professional destruction, not a one-off expression of opinion.

The court also considered the Iqbal principle — that inter partes correspondence connected to litigation attracts immunity from harassment claims — but found it did not assist the defendant as regards the TikTok publications, and noted it went no further than protecting communications with a genuine nexus to the proceedings.

On injunction terms, the judge declined to prohibit contact with regulators or police, finding interim restriction disproportionate given that such bodies operate their own filtering procedures. He also refused to restrain future civil claims, noting the established civil restraint order regime already provides the appropriate mechanism. Crucially, the defendant was expressly permitted to report on public hearings and publish this judgement — subject only to the withholding order protecting the children's identities and details of the family proceedings.

The case carries a clear reminder of the interface between family court confidentiality and High Court harassment litigation. Neither side may deploy detailed family proceedings material in collateral civil claims without the Family Court's permission; a point the judge enforced robustly by excluding unapproved documents from both parties.

The court left open, but plainly flagged, the jurisdiction recognised in Titan Wealth Holdings Ltd v Okunola [2026] EWCA Civ 138 to restrain conduct that threatens the integrity of the court's own process — a jurisdiction that may yet be engaged as proceedings progress.