An ex-local authority worker who is said to have mounted a vitriolic campaign against his former employer and others has been ordered to desist by the High Court. Issuing an interim injunction against the man, the court accepted that there was a good arguable case in both defamation and harassment against him.
Subsequent to the man’s dismissal from a sensitive post involving care of children, he had been convicted of a sexual offence and harassment and had embarked on a campaign to proclaim his innocence. This involved the publication of a book and extensive postings on websites which were said to have disclosed information relating to children for whom he had been responsible.
Other employees of the local authority had complained of being threatened by the man and he was also alleged to have defamed solicitors representing his former employer in an email circulated to 300 recipients. Granting the interim injunction, the court ruled that the claimants’ pleas of harassment and defamation were ‘likely to succeed at trial.’ Also finding that there was a good arguable case that the man had breached the Data Protection Act 1998, the court also issued a non-disclosure order, forbidding him from disseminating or processing any confidential information that he had gleaned during the period of his employment.