Another Twitter court case as Jack Monroe begins proceedings against Katie Hopkins

The food columnist Jack Monroe has begun libel proceedings against Katie Hopkins, after she sent tweets suggesting Monroe had defaced a war memorial during an anti-austerity march last year. The columnist, who is arguing that the tweets were mistakenly sent after she confused Monroe with journalist Laurie Penny, deleted the tweet but did not retract the allegation. Monroe is arguing that this case of ‘mistaken identity’ has led to reputation damage and death threats.

The dispute began after Laurie Penny, a columnist for the New Statesman, tweeted that she “[didn’t] have a problem” with the vandalism as a form of protest, as “the bravery of past generations does not oblige us to be cowed today”. Shortly after, Hopkins tweeted Monroe saying “Scrawled on any memorials recently? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom. Grandma got any more medals?”

Monroe had previously asked Hopkins to donate £5000 to migrant support charities and issue a public apology in order to avoid court. Hopkins, who left the Sun last year after a column comparing migrants to cockroaches sparked a petition calling for her removal, ignored these requests and court proceedings began on Monday.

These legal proceedings join a long list of court cases which have stemmed from libellous tweets. Due to the speed with which a Tweet travels and the size of the audience it reaches, claimants view the potential for damage to be high in cases involving libellous social media posts. As such while laws bought in in 2015 have led to an overall drop in libel cases, those relating to social media have seen an increase.