Green energy industrialist Dale Vince’s High Court data protection claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail has been thrown out by a judge.
Vince brought legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over an article headlined “Labour repays £100,000 to sex pest donor”, published in June 2023.
The story reported that the Labour Party was handing back money to donor Davide Serra with a picture showing Vince holding a Just Stop Oil banner.
This picture was changed to one of Serra online 47 minutes after publication on the Mail+ app but the original picture of Vince remained in the print version.
An employment tribunal in 2022 heard Serra had made sexist comments to a female colleague which were found to amount to unlawful harassment related to sex.
Vince claimed ANL misused his personal data and that the publication of his photograph with this story would lead readers to believe he had been accused of sexual harassment.
ANL had defended the claim, with its lawyers previously telling the High Court in London that it was an abuse of process and a “resurrection” of a libel claim that was dismissed and described as “bound to fail” last year.
In a judgment on Monday, a High Court judge threw out the data protection claim.
Mr Justice Swift said: “There is no real prospect that Mr Vince will succeed on his claim.
“As in the defamation proceedings, it is accepted that on reading the text of the article published in Mail+ and the Daily Mail any ordinary reader would very quickly realise that Mr Vince was not being accused of sexual harassment.
“Considered on this basis the personal data relating to Mr Vince was processed fairly.”
He said there was “every reason” why the data protection claim should have been heard with the defamation claim last year.
“Both claims arose out of the same event, the publication of the article in Mail+ and the Daily Mail,” he added.
“Both claims rely on the same factual circumstances, namely the juxtaposition of the headline, photographs and caption, and the contention that the combination of the headline and the photograph created the misleading impression that Mr Vince had been accused of sexual harassment.”
In a separate case the Daily Mail apologised and agreed substantial libel damages to Vince twice in the past year, first over an article inaccurately stating he said Hamas “should be free to defend itself” and then over a later story falsely claiming he supported Hamas.
GB News also apologised to Vince over reporting of his comments about Hamas and Guido Fawkes ultimately settled its own case to avoid potentially “ruinous” costs after a preliminary ruling went against it.
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