Mr Chief Of Met Police calling for new laws is probably thinking along the following lines:
Anti-Slapps legislation (strategic lawsuit against public participation)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation
Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP suits or intimidation lawsuits), or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.
In a typical SLAPP, the plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs, or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. In some cases, particularly in the context of investigative journalism, repeated frivolous litigation against a defendant may raise the cost of directors and officers and other liability insurance for that party, interfering with an organization's ability to operate. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate. A SLAPP is often preceded by a legal threat. SLAPPs bring about freedom of speech concerns due to their chilling effect and are often difficult to filter out and penalize because the plaintiffs attempt to obfuscate their intent to censor, intimidate, or silence their critics.
Has this sparked anyone's interest here yet?
I shall continue...
Characteristics
SLAPP is a form of strategic litigation or impact litigation that do not have true legal claims but are focused on deterring a message that they do not like.
A common feature of SLAPPs is forum shopping, wherein plaintiffs find courts that are more favourable towards the claims to be brought than the court in which the defendant (or sometimes plaintiffs) live.
Other widely mentioned elements of a SLAPP are the actual effectiveness at silencing critics, the timing of the suit, inclusion of extra or spurious defendants (such as relatives or hosts of legitimate defendants), inclusion of plaintiffs with no real claim (such as corporations that are affiliated with legitimate plaintiffs), making claims that are very difficult to disprove or rely on no written record, ambiguous or deliberately mangled wording that lets plaintiffs make spurious allegations without fear of perjury, refusal to consider any settlement (or none other than cash), characterization of all offers to settle as insincere, extensive and unnecessary demands for discovery, attempts to identify anonymous or pseudonymous critics, appeals on minor points of law, and demands for broad rulings when appeal is accepted on such minor points of law. In some instances it is clear that plaintiffs are attempting to drain defendants of their financial resources by making the lawsuit as costly as possible, and in these cases the plaintiff's motive may not be legal victory, but merely to waste the defendant's time and money.
When SLAPPs involve copyright law, they can be considered as a type of censorship by copyright.
Hmm this is sounding very familiar isn't it?
The UK currently only has anti slapps legislation for economic crime (it's only a couple of years old) but there is a growing awareness that we possibly need more.
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 is the first UK law that includes anti-slapps measures and this came into force in June.
The relevant section:
Meaning of “SLAPP” claim
(1)For the purposes of section 194 a claim is a “SLAPP claim” if—
(a)the claimant’s behaviour in relation to the matters complained of in the claim has, or is intended to have, the effect of restraining the defendant’s exercise of the right to freedom of speech,
(b)any of the information that is or would be disclosed by the exercise of that right has to do with economic crime,
(c)any part of that disclosure is or would be made for a purpose related to the public interest in combating economic crime, and
(d)any of the behaviour of the claimant in relation to the matters complained of in the claim is intended to cause the defendant—
(i)harassment, alarm or distress,
(ii)expense, or
(iii)any other harm or inconvenience,
beyond that ordinarily encountered in the course of properly conducted litigation.
(2)For the purposes of determining whether a claim meets the condition in subsection (1)(a) or (c), any limitation prescribed by law on the exercise of the right to freedom of speech (for example in relation to the making of defamatory statements) is to be ignored.
(3)For the purposes of this section, information mentioned in subsection (1)(b) “has to do with economic crime” if—
(a)it relates to behaviour or circumstances which the defendant reasonably believes (or, as the case requires, believed) to be evidence of the commission of an economic crime, or
(b)the defendant has (or, as the case requires, had) reason to suspect that an economic crime may have occurred and believes (or, as the case requires, believed) that the disclosure of the information would facilitate an investigation into whether such a crime has (or had) occurred.
(4)In determining whether any behaviour of the claimant falls within subsection (1)(d), the court may, in particular, take into account—
(a)whether the behaviour is a disproportionate reaction to the matters complained of in the claim, including whether the costs incurred by the claimant are out of proportion to the remedy sought;
(b)whether the defendant has access to fewer resources with which to defend the claim than another person against whom the claimant could have brought (but did not bring) proceedings in relation to the matters complained of in the claim;
(c)any relevant failure, or anticipated failure, by the claimant to comply with a pre-action protocol, rule of court or practice direction, or to comply with or follow a rule or recommendation of a professional regulatory body.
(5)For the purposes of subsection (4)(c) a failure, or anticipated failure, is “relevant” so far as it relates to—
(a)the choice of jurisdiction,
(b)the use of dilatory strategies,
(c)the nature or amount of material sought on disclosure,
(d)the way to respond to requests for comment or clarification,
(e)the use of correspondence,
(f)making or responding to offers to settle, or
(g)the use of alternative dispute resolution procedures.
Now do we have any groups that are engaging in slapps type behaviour? Hmmm let me think about that.
Noting proximity of this law change in economic crime to the group that springs to mind first.
Certainly it seems like Glinner may well be a victim of such tactics and hmm... Sarah Phillimore mysteriously springs to mind here too.