Limitation, interim injunctions and source protection in media claims: Cynthia Niruka Tooley v Associated Newspapers Limited and Telegraph Media Group Limited [2026] EWHC 683 (KB)

In Cynthia Niruka Tooley v Associated Newspapers Limited and Telegraph Media Group Limited [2026] EWHC 683 (KB), Mrs Justice Steyn determined a group of interlocutory applications arising out of media claims in defamation and malicious falsehood. The judgment did not decide whether the publications were ultimately true or false. Instead, it addressed the procedural and threshold questions that frequently determine whether such claims can proceed at all, namely relief from sanctions, the lifting of stays, limitation, interim injunctive relief and Norwich Pharmacal relief.

The decision is significant for two main reasons. First, it draws a sharp distinction between an inadvertent case management default, which may justify relief from sanctions, and a failure to bring a defamation claim within the one year limitation period, which will not be excused without a clear and satisfactory explanation. Secondly, it is a strong reaffirmation both of the court’s reluctance to restrain publication in defamation proceedings before trial and of the strength of the protection afforded to confidential journalistic sources.

Factual background

The proceedings arose out of articles published by Associated Newspapers Limited, in the Daily Mail and MailOnline, and by Telegraph Media Group Limited in the Telegraph online. The publications concerned the claimant’s marital breakdown with Dr Tooley and matters said to arise from that dispute, including allegations communicated to the police and the University of Buckingham, and later reporting connected with separate civil proceedings. The claimant also had proceedings against Times Media Ltd, but those were dealt with separately and were not the subject of this judgment.

Mrs Justice Steyn identified four ANL articles of relevance. The first ANL article was published online on 18 October 2024 and in print on 19 October 2024. The second was published online on 5 December 2024. The third followed on 30 January 2025. A fourth article was published on 23 April 2025. The claimant did not sue on the fourth article, but it became central to her application for Norwich Pharmacal relief. The Telegraph article was also published on 23 April 2025.

The claimant issued two separate claims against ANL and one against TMG. The first ANL claim, ANL1, was issued in October 2025. Although the particulars of claim referred to both the first and second ANL articles, the claim form itself identified only the first article. The claim form was dated 23 October 2025 and sealed on 24 October 2025. The TMG claim, also in defamation and malicious falsehood, was issued on the same day as ANL1. A second claim against ANL, ANL2, was issued on 1 December 2025, amended before service, and deemed served on 4 February 2026. The amended claim form identified the second and third ANL articles, although the particulars of claim in ANL2 did not, at the time of the judgment, address the second ANL article.

Before issue, the claimant had instructed specialist defamation solicitors under a conditional fee agreement. Letters of claim were sent in September 2025. The defendants’ solicitors raised, among other matters, the effect of a non-molestation order made in family proceedings between the claimant and Dr Tooley. The claimant then lost her legal representation and thereafter acted in person.

On 27 October 2025 Master Stevens made materially identical orders in ANL1 and in the TMG claim. Each claim was stayed to enable the parties to engage in the Media and Communications Pre-Action Protocol. Time for service was effectively suspended. The claimant was required to apply to lift the stay by 4.00 pm on 5 January 2026, failing which the relevant claim would be struck out. She made the application in time in ANL1, but not in the TMG claim.

By the time the matter came before Mrs Justice Steyn, four principal issues required determination. First, whether the claimant should obtain relief from sanctions in the TMG claim after failing to apply in time to lift the stay. Secondly, whether the court should disapply the one year limitation period in relation to ANL1, which had been brought several days late. Thirdly, whether interim injunctions should be granted to restrain continued publication by ANL and TMG. Fourthly, whether ANL should be required, by Norwich Pharmacal order, to identify the source or sources of information used in the fourth ANL article, and later also the source of the allegation concerning an abandoned cat in the first ANL article.

The issues before the court

The first issue concerned the Denton jurisdiction. The court had to decide whether the claimant’s failure to apply in time to lift the stay in the TMG proceedings was a serious and significant default, whether it had been adequately explained, and whether, considering all the circumstances, relief from sanctions ought to be granted.

The second issue was limitation. The claim in ANL1 had been brought outside the primary one year period prescribed by section 4A of the Limitation Act 1980. That raised two questions. The first was whether ANL1 in fact extended beyond the first ANL article to the second article as well. The second was whether the discretion under section 32A should be exercised so as to permit the claim to proceed notwithstanding late issue.

The third issue was whether the claimant could satisfy the demanding test for interim restraint in defamation proceedings. That required the court to consider not merely section 12 of the Human Rights Act 1998, but the stricter rule in Bonnard v Perryman.

The fourth issue was whether the claimant had established the threshold conditions for Norwich Pharmacal relief, and, if so, whether it was necessary and proportionate to override the very strong protection given to journalistic sources by section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 and article 10 principles.

The court’s reasoning

Relief from sanctions in the TMG claim

Mrs Justice Steyn held that the failure to apply in time to lift the stay in the TMG claim was serious and significant. Master Stevens’ order expressly provided that, if no application were made by 5 January 2026, the claim would stand struck out. The default therefore had immediate and substantial consequences.

The critical question was why the default occurred. The claimant’s explanation, accepted by the court, was that she had made an inadvertent administrative error while acting in person across multiple closely related claims. She had received two almost identical stay orders, made on the same day but sealed weeks apart. The judge found that the claimant had effectively diarised the step required in ANL1 but had failed to replicate it for the TMG claim once the later sealed order arrived. The explanation was treated as consistent and convincing. The court did not regard the error as deliberate, tactical or contumelious.

The claimant relied on a recent ADHD diagnosis. Mrs Justice Steyn gave that material little weight. It was not a Part 35 compliant expert report and was not treated as decisive. Equally, the fact that the claimant was a litigant in person did not reduce the standard of compliance required. Even so, both matters could properly be considered at the margins when assessing where justice lay.

At the third Denton stage, the balance favoured relief. The TMG claim had originally been issued within time. It was obvious throughout that the claimant intended to pursue it. She had continued engagement during the stay and had filed an interim injunction application in the TMG proceedings on 5 January 2026, which strongly indicated that the omission to apply formally to lift the stay was indeed a mistake rather than abandonment. In those circumstances, the court reinstated the TMG claim and lifted the stay.

Scope of ANL1 and limitation

A significant preliminary issue arose as to what ANL1 actually covered. The claimant’s particulars of claim referred to both the first and second ANL articles. The claim form, however, identified only the first article. Mrs Justice Steyn held that the claim could not be enlarged by particulars of claim in that way. Practice Direction 53B requires the publication complained of in a libel claim to be identified in the claim form itself. The consequence was that ANL1 related only to the first ANL article. Any claim concerning the second and third ANL articles fell within ANL2, although the judgment noted that the particulars of claim in ANL2 did not then address the second ANL article.

That conclusion mattered because the first ANL article was published on 18 October 2024, and the claim should therefore have been brought by 18 October 2025. The ANL1 claim form was dated 23 October 2025 and sealed on 24 October 2025. ANL was prepared to proceed on the assumption most favourable to the claimant, namely that the claim was brought on 23 October 2025. On that footing it was five days late. The issue was therefore whether section 32A of the Limitation Act 1980 should be used to disapply the time limit.

The judgment contains a firm restatement of the policy underlying the one year limitation period in defamation and malicious falsehood. Claims of this kind are meant to be pursued promptly. Vindication loses much of its point if proceedings are not advanced with speed, and the law therefore treats delay with particular strictness. The absence of evidential prejudice to the defendant may be relevant, but it is not the decisive question. Central importance attaches to whether the claimant has provided a clear, adequate and satisfactory explanation for the delay.

On the facts, Mrs Justice Steyn concluded that the claimant had not done so. The claimant knew of the first article from the outset. Indeed, shortly after publication she complained that it contained falsehoods and untrue statements. Her later reliance on homelessness, mental strain, the retention of devices by police, the defendants’ solicitors’ request for clarification concerning the non-molestation order, and the loss of her own solicitors did not, singly or cumulatively, provide a satisfactory explanation for late issue. The judge rejected in particular the assertion that the retention of devices had made it practically impossible for the claimant to litigate. The documentary record showed that she had continued corresponding by email and taking litigation steps during that period. The suggestion that the defendants’ solicitors had obstructed compliance with the Pre-Action Protocol was also rejected. Their request for clarification about the effect of the non-molestation order was reasonable and did not prevent the issue of proceedings. The loss of solicitors was accepted as unexpected, but it had occurred more than three weeks before expiry of the limitation period, and there was no evidence explaining why the claim could not then have been issued in time.

Once the untenable explanations were put aside, there was no real explanation for the delay. Mrs Justice Steyn therefore refused to disapply the limitation period. ANL1 was dismissed. The judgment underscores the strictness of this field. In defamation limitation, a short delay is not treated as trivial. The authorities cited by the judge make the point plainly: a miss is as good as a mile.

Interim injunctions

The claimant sought interim injunctions against ANL and TMG requiring removal of publications, reader comments, and any words to the same or similar effect. Mrs Justice Steyn first observed that the orders sought were, on any view, too wide. They went well beyond any tightly framed restraint of identified defamatory matter.

The applications then failed on more fundamental grounds. In media cases of this kind, section 12 of the Human Rights Act 1998 applies, but defamation claims are subject to the still more exacting Bonnard v Perryman principle. Prior restraint will not be granted where there is any real prospect that the claim may fail.

In relation to the TMG article, the court held that the first Bonnard condition was not satisfied. Without determining meaning finally, it was at least arguable that the article did not convey that the claimant had fabricated or maliciously advanced allegations. The article was therefore not unarguably defamatory.

As to both defendants, there was also at least an arguable truth defence. The defendants had made clear that, if meanings defamatory of the claimant were ultimately found, they were likely to plead truth in relation to allegations concerning information she had provided to the police and the university during the marital breakdown.

The application against ANL faced an additional difficulty. It had been made in ANL1, yet ANL1 was confined to the first article and was being dismissed on limitation grounds. No interim injunction could properly be granted in a claim that was itself being dismissed. Further, ANL had at least an arguable limitation defence under section 8 of the Defamation Act 2013 in relation to the second ANL article, particularly given the claimant’s own description of that article as repeating and amplifying the same sting as the first. The section 8 argument in relation to the third ANL article was weaker, but still arguable. Delay in seeking injunctive relief would, in any event, have counted strongly against the grant of such relief.

Norwich Pharmacal relief

The Norwich Pharmacal application failed because the claimant did not establish an arguable underlying wrong by the source, and because the court was not persuaded that source disclosure was necessary and proportionate in the interests of justice.

So far as the fourth ANL article was concerned, the claimant suspected that Dr Tooley’s solicitors, or some other person connected with proceedings involving her, had improperly supplied information about B-Fab UK Ltd v Tooley. Mrs Justice Steyn held that the article was, in substance, a report of county court proceedings which, on the material before the court, had been heard in public. The absence of members of the public or journalists from the hearing did not convert a public hearing into a private one. There was no evidence of any reporting restriction or other order preventing publication. The judge distinguished the position from the claimant’s separate application against the Guardian on two bases. First, in that case there had at least been some material suggesting possible disclosure before trial, whereas there was no such evidence in relation to the Daily Mail. Secondly, a possible argument based on the non-molestation order had been raised in the Guardian proceedings but was not advanced before her.

The alternative complaint, concerning the reference to an abandoned cat in the first ANL article, failed for similar reasons. The claimant relied on later correspondence from Griffin Law using somewhat similar language. Mrs Justice Steyn held that the wording was not distinctive enough to support an inference that Griffin Law had been the source. The similarity was equally consistent with the solicitors having seen the published article before writing their letter, or with a common originating description. On the evidence, there was no proper basis for finding arguable wrongdoing by the source.

The judge expressly accepted that the second and third Norwich Pharmacal criteria were met, namely that the claimant did not know the source’s identity and that, if there were arguable wrongdoing, ANL would be sufficiently mixed up in it and likely able to identify the source. The difficulty lay at the first threshold. Moreover, even if that threshold had been met, the application would still have failed in the exercise of discretion. Section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 gives powerful protection to journalistic sources. That protection can be displaced only where disclosure is genuinely necessary, not merely useful or desirable. The claimant had not demonstrated a sufficiently pressing case, nor that disclosure was a necessary and proportionate response.

The decision

Mrs Justice Steyn granted the claimant relief from sanctions in the TMG claim, reinstated that claim and lifted the stay. She refused to disapply limitation in ANL1, with the consequence that ANL1 was dismissed. She refused the applications for interim injunctions against both ANL and TMG. She also refused the Norwich Pharmacal application against ANL.

The only relief obtained by the claimant was procedural relief, namely relief from sanctions, reinstatement of the TMG claim and lifting of the stay. The judgment did not resolve the merits of the surviving claims and left any later issues concerning ANL2 for future determination.

Conclusion

The judgment is a valuable reminder that not all delay is treated alike. A claimant who has issued in time may still obtain relief from sanctions for an inadvertent procedural default if the surrounding circumstances demonstrate a genuine intention to pursue the claim and the justice of the case favours reinstatement. That relative flexibility does not translate into similar indulgence on limitation. Where a defamation claim is issued late, even by only a few days, the court will expect a precise and persuasive explanation.

The decision is also important on claim formulation. In media litigation, the publication sued upon must be identified in the claim form. It is unsafe to assume that particulars of claim can enlarge the claim by introducing additional publications. That is not a mere pleading technicality. It can affect limitation, service, interim relief and the entire procedural shape of the case.

On interim relief, the judgment is a clear statement of the continuing force of Bonnard v Perryman. However strongly a claimant may feel about the falsity and damaging nature of a publication, prior restraint remains exceptional. If meaning is arguable, truth is in play, limitation is arguable, or the draft order is overbroad, an interim injunction is unlikely. Importantly, the judgment says nothing final about the truth or falsity of the publications. Its reasoning is directed to threshold relief, not ultimate liability.

Finally, the Norwich Pharmacal reasoning will be of real practical importance. The court required more than suspicion, more than a belief that information must have come from a limited circle, and more than a sense that disclosure would be fair. Where the publication complained of is substantially a report of public proceedings, and no concrete wrong by the source is shown, the court will not compel a publisher to identify a confidential source. For publishers and journalists, that part of the judgment is a strong endorsement of the public importance of source protection.

Related decision

A separate ruling handed down on the same date in Cynthia Niruka Tooley v Times Media Ltd [2026] EWHC 675 (KB) dealt with related interlocutory applications arising from a February 2025 article in The Times, including an attempted reframing of the interim injunction application as one grounded primarily in misuse of private information and breach of confidence, together with a Norwich Pharmacal application for source disclosure. Read together, the two rulings show the court taking a consistently strict approach to prior restraint, source protection and procedural discipline in connected media claims.

Further Reading

• Read v De Giovanni [2026] EWHC 243 (KB): Interim Injunction Refused
• Malicious Falsehood in English Law: Principles and Recent Developments
• Misuse of Private Information Claims: Privacy Law Explained
• Pre-Action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims
• Limitation Periods in English Law: Key Time Limits Explained

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Carruthers Law advises on defamation, malicious falsehood, misuse of private information, urgent injunctions and related media disputes. If you require advice about a publication dispute, limitation, interim relief or Norwich Pharmacal applications, please contact Carruthers Law on 0151 541 2040 or 0203 846 2862, email info@carruthers-law.co.uk, or use the Contact Us page.