Now, here in the UK, the actor and political activist, Lawrence Fox, says he'll appeal after being ordered to pay two people he referred to as pedophiles, £90,000 each in damages. He was sued by the former Stonewall charity trustee, Simon Blake, and the drag artist, Crystal, after making the comments on social media. A little earlier, I spoke to Crystal, the former Drag Race UK star, who was awarded £90,000 in damages, and who had felt vindicated by the verdict.

Yeah, the main feeling is vindication, and that's what these damages are there to do. It's been three and a half years of the pursuit of this vindication, and just seeing it on the page today has just been... It's been emotional, it's been a relief, and as I say, it's been very vindicating to just see how I've been feeling written down on that judgment paper.

Just take us through the lengthy process that there has been. This started back in what, 2020?

Yeah, October 2020. I think I had no idea it would take this long, but it has been three and a half years of mostly in action, but occasional flare-ups of trial of preliminary issue, appeal, and then the actual court case. That was obviously the most eventful part of it, which we had in December, and now we've just finally had the judgment and the award of damages.

I noticed there has a reaction from Lawrence Fox. He's tweeted on what used to be known as Twitter. He said none of the claimants could provide a single witness in court to support the claim that they'd suffered any harm, and he suggested that he will be appealing.

I mean, I'm obviously disappointed to hear that he's going to appeal, but he has been saying that throughout. I honestly don't know how he's going to afford it, but I'm confident that we'll win on appeal if if even the Court of Appeal is willing to hear it, because it seems all very black and white to me. What I would also just say about Lawrence Fox's posts on X, I think the judge said it best when she said that he's characterized by impulsiveness, theatricality, a disregard for or uninterest in the impact on others, and an unfastidiousness about objective factuality. I think that's how we should read anything that he says on X.

When he suggests that you haven't really suffered any harm from what was said. Let's not forget that he referred to you as a pedophile.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, I strongly disagree with that, which is why I took him to court over it. It's his continuous minimizing of the impact that he has on others that I find very distressing. He could have made this go away very early on in the proceedings by apologizing and retracting, but he refused to do that. He doubled down. It's the playbook that we see from right-wing pundits across the board. It's instead of apologizing, never apologize, just keep digging that hole, double down, double down, double down, and see how far you can get. That's what we're seeing with him. He's never going to admit that he was wrong, and he's never going to admit that what he said has consequences, but at least he's going to have to pay.

The judge said in her very lengthy ruling, actually, that you've taken this case and you've done so under a sustained hailstorm of Mr. Fox's exercise of his rights of amplified free speech. Do you hope today that this might draw a line under this whole lengthy process?

I think because it has gone on for so long, I don't think it's ever necessarily done. In one hand, what his defamation has shown me is that this rhetoric has become so much more acceptable in modern life. Even under my post today announcing the judgment, there was someone calling me a danger to children. In a lot of ways, that genie is out of the bottle. But what I hope it does show is that there are consequences for these demagogues. When they just go and say whatever they want. Free speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences. I hope that it can also help to embolden other people who experience this to also stand up for themselves. We're not going to get the faceless trolls on Twitter, but if you're going to go out there with a blue tick and say outrageous things, there might be outrageous consequences.

And that was Crystal, the former Drag Race UK star, talking to me a little earlier after having been awarded £90,000 in damages.