UCU’s Jo Grady to pay damages after ‘wild and reckless’ tweets

The general secretary of the University and College Union has agreed to pay a trade union activist and broadcaster “substantial” damages after being accused of libelling him during a row on Twitter.

Paul Embery sued Jo Grady over comments she made on social media in August 2022, which he said “portrayed him as a misogynist, a pervert and a liar”.

Mr Embery, a former official of the Fire Brigades Union, was travelling on a train with his children from London to Norwich when he was disturbed by a group of women who were “consuming alcohol and behaving in a loud and obnoxious manner”, his solicitor, Tom Double, told a hearing in London’s High Court of Justice.

He asked the women not to swear but was met with “hostility and abuse”, so Mr Embery found the train guard, who asked the group to reduce the noise level, Mr Double continued.

Despite being initially obliging, the women were said to have resumed their “loutish behaviour” and abused Mr Embery and his children. He recorded himself being threatened by the women on his mobile phone and tweeted a picture of them to the train operator – Greater Anglia – in the hope that the company would take action.

This tweet went viral and was seen by more than a million people, including Dr Grady, who responded, telling Mr Embery to “grow up” and “take a day off bullying women and pretending to be outraged for clicks”, the court heard.

Dr Grady followed this up with another tweet to her 55,000 followers, calling Mr Embery “creepy” and accusing him of lying about what had happened “for clout”, Mr Double said.

He added that Mr Embery believed Dr Grady had accused him of “being a serial harasser of women and lying about the incident in question”. As the comments were retweeted and liked thousands of times, they had “caused immeasurable harm to his reputation”, Mr Double told the hearing. “They [the tweets] contained wild and reckless allegations, all entirely without foundation.”

Mr Embery was said by his solicitor to be a “vocal public supporter of women’s rights and deplores all bullying and violence towards women and girls”, and Dr Grady’s allegations were “a source of considerable distress” to him.

He asked Dr Grady to apologise and withdraw the allegations, which she refused to do, Mr Double said, forcing his client to crowdsource funding in order to take legal action.

Dr Grady had now agreed to pay Mr Embery “substantial damages and legal costs” and had “undertaken not to repeat the allegations or similar allegations”, the court heard.

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Embery said the UCU leader would pay him £9,975 in damages and £12,100 to cover his legal costs. He said he would donate this money to groups “campaigning to defend women’s sex-based rights and the integrity of women’s sports”.

Mr Embery – a columnist and broadcaster who has featured on GB News, UnHerd and Huffington Post – said he was used to “people saying all sorts of stuff about me on social media” but “could not let this one go”, given Dr Grady’s sizeable Twitter following and prominence within the trade union movement.

He said he “took no pleasure” in the outcome but hoped that it would make people think twice about what they tweeted.

Dr Grady was not in court for the hearing but in a statement posted on Twitter she said she did not “share Mr Embery's understanding of the tweets I published" or admit any liability. 

However, Dr Grady continued, she was not “able to invest the time necessary to defend Mr Embery's claims” or afford the financial commitment involved. 

She said she had therefore “reluctantly” agreed to personally pay a sum of money to Mr Embery in return for him agreeing not to issue proceedings against her. 

“In the current climate anyone involved as I am in working for a trade union and for trade union members, has much more important priorities than fighting a defamation claim in the courts,” Dr Grady said. 

“My time and energy is rightly required by those I represent, dealing with current disputes and industrial action, and championing the cause of working people more broadly. This is where my focus is and will remain. This is why I have chosen to settle Mr Embrey's claim before further time and money is wasted.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com