This is a version of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition newsletter sent out earlier on 15 April as part of the Day of Action. If you would like to receive the newsletter add your details to the form at the bottom of this page.
The King’s Speech is early next month. This is when we will know what the Government is prioritising for the next parliamentary session. While the Prime Minister has called SLAPPs “intolerable”, we also are aware that recent press reporting has suggested that a commitment to include anti-SLAPP protections has been shelved.
However, there is still time to ensure the Government acts.
That is why we are organising a Day of Action today to mobilise local media outlets, our supporters, SLAPP targets and members of the public to ensure this message cannot be ignored: If we value the ability of every sector of society to speak out on issues of societal importance and want to protect the British justice system from abuse, we need accessible and universal anti-SLAPP protections.
The voices they tried to silence
The Coalition has long called for a universal anti-SLAPP law but today I wanted to give this over to those with more powerful stories to tell, those who have been targeted for speaking out.
Take Tracy for example. She was a former patient who was sued by Signature Clinic after posting a critical post on a facebook support group. While the case against her was settled the impact endures. She told the Coalition:
“When I shared my honest experience and asked for advice on a Facebook support group, I never imagined the law would be used to hunt me down. I was met with a level of cruelty that no ordinary person should ever have to face. An aggressive solicitor told me directly that ‘the fear of imprisonment should stop those itchy fingers.’ That one sentence changed my life. I lived in a constant state of terror, paralysed by the threat that I could lose my home, or even be taken away from my family and thrown in a jail cell. The weight was so heavy that I couldn’t even tell my husband; I carried the fear of our family’s total ruin entirely alone for months. This isn’t ‘justice’; it is legal bullying designed to break your spirit and force you into silence.”
The same clinic also secured an injunction against patient advocate Karen Perrett, who is still fighting for costs after years of litigation. She told the Coalition why the Government must act. She said:
“SLAPPs aren’t just lawsuits; they are a weapon used to destroy lives. As someone who only tried to do the right thing, I was hunted by abusive lawsuits that stripped me of my livelihood and left me literally broken. It is a slow, calculated torture. I was threatened with prison more than 12 times by a lawyer for things I never even did. They used the terror of a jail cell to try and break my spirit and bury the truth. This is a human rights crisis that shatters families while the wealthy use our courts to bully the innocent into silence. We need laws that let judges kill these ‘bully cases’ before they get off the ground.”
SLAPPs may appear, at first glance, to be legal mechanisms to vindicate a right. However, this is not the case. They enable the wealthy and powerful to take advantage of the British justice system and make the most of power and financial imbalances. Jeff Thomson, a campaigner and former councillor in the Penrith area knows this only too well. He told the Coalition that:
“A SLAPP is the modern day version of David and Goliath where a rich and powerful organisation can use the law to its own advantage. You are literally panicked into submission with fear of all the possible repercussions on your life, health, relationships, and finance. It’s overwhelming. I know, I woke up one morning to be threatened with a High Court £20,000 defamation claim, when I knew I was morally in the right. It’s scary!”
The inequality that sits at the heart of SLAPPs can often be a direct barrier to accountability and justice. Victims of crime silenced through SLAPPs are effectively targeted twice, first through the crime itself and then through the abusive legal threat. Jen McAdam’s experience highlights this, telling the Coalition:
“As a victim of fraud perpetrated by Ruja Ignatova and OneCoin, I experienced firsthand how SLAPPs are used to silence those seeking justice. After losing everything to her multi-billion-dollar scam, I faced legal intimidation and potential litigation financial ruin when she hired a powerful legal firm, turning the legal system into a weapon against victims rather than a path to accountability. This abuse of power exposes a dangerous imbalance, where wealth can suppress truth through fear.”
Even for those who succeeded in defending themselves, the wider impact on society does not go unnoticed. Tax campaigner, Dan Neidle who last month secured the first SLAPP strike out in British legal history, said that:
“Too many of our laws enable the wealthy and powerful to silence whistleblowers, bloggers and journalists. Only the wealthy can bring such abusive claims and only the wealthy can defend them. That means speech gets silenced by lawyers’ letters. And it means we only found out the truth about Jimmy Saville and Cyril Smith after they were dead.”
Whoever SLAPPs are used to intimidate, whether they are journalists on the beat, campaigners challenging powerful interests, survivors seeking to protect other women, or those seeking to help others make informed choices, they erode the democratic framework of the UK that values everyone’s right to speak out and inform others. Abdalle Mumin, a Somali journalist in exile in the UK who was threatened in 2025 makes this point clearly to the Government:
“I want to speak directly to the UK Government today. SLAPPs are not just legal tools; they violate the UK’s principles of a free and democratic society. They are instruments of intimidation that undermine human dignity, threaten the safety of journalists and human rights defenders, and weaken the foundations of democracy by silencing critical voices.”
These are the voices that SLAPPs have been used to try and silence. Each were speaking out on issues of importance to them and the wider society, yet the courts were abused to try and shut them up. It shouldn’t be this way.
If, like us, you believe that free expression must be free of such abusive legal threats, please tell your MP to call on the government to back calls for reform and include anti-SLAPP protections in the King’s Speech. We have prepared a template letter you can send. Just click here.
We can all stand alongside those who have been sued by ensuring we have the laws in place to protect our courts from abuse and ensure we are all free to speak out in the public interest.
We support those targeted by ensuring others will not face the same fate in the future.