De Giovanni v Kehoe & Ors: a cautionary tale on service, procedure and parallel defamation claims

De Giovanni v Kehoe & Ors [2026] EWHC 1136 (KB): a cautionary tale on service, procedure and parallel defamation claims

This High Court decision will be of real interest to anyone involved in defamation or privacy disputes in England and Wales, not because it breaks new ground on meaning or serious harm, but because it is a stark reminder that even a claim which raises serious reputational issues can unravel very quickly if the procedural rules are not followed properly. In De Giovanni v Kehoe & Ors, Mrs Justice Steyn set aside a default judgment obtained in the County Court, struck out that claim as an abuse of process and set aside the High Court claim form for failure to achieve valid service in time. For practitioners, the message is straightforward: in media litigation, procedure is not a technical sideshow. It can decide the case before the merits are ever reached.

Background

The dispute arose out of an article published in The Londoner on 2 August 2025 under the headline “Claudio is Scamming”. The claimant, Claudio De Giovanni, brought two defamation claims arising from that publication. First, he issued proceedings in the County Court against the first Defendant alone and obtained default judgment. He then issued a separate High Court claim against all three defendants, seeking substantially larger damages. That procedural history immediately created difficulty. Defamation claims are specialist claims and the court was highly critical of the way the Claimant attempted to use one set of proceedings as leverage in relation to another.

Default judgment and defective service

The court held that the default judgment in the County Court had to be set aside. The central issue was service. The Claimant had emailed Mr Kehoe before the claim had even been issued, attaching an unsealed claim form marked for reference. That could not amount to valid service. As the judge put it, “the claim was issued on 8 August 2025. The claim form emailed to Mr Kehoe a day earlier had not been issued”. The court also noted that Mr Kehoe had not indicated any willingness to accept service by email. In media and communications work, that is a point solicitors deal with routinely, but litigants in person often underestimate its importance.

The Claimant also failed to show that the physical address used was the Defendant’s usual or last known residence. Mrs Justice Steyn found that, in the absence of evidence explaining the Claimant’s state of knowledge, he had “not established a good arguable case” that the address used was Mr Kehoe’s last known residence. That mattered because, if service was not valid, the obligation to acknowledge service never arose and default judgment was wrongly entered. The result was mandatory relief under CPR 13.2. The judge added that, even if service had technically been valid, she would still have set the judgment aside under CPR 13.3 because there was “some other good reason” to do so.

Parallel proceedings and abuse of process

One of the most striking parts of the judgment is the court’s treatment of the County Court proceedings as an abuse of process. The Claimant had made clear in the County Court claim form that he was willing to accept a smaller sum if the article was removed, failing which High Court proceedings for £250,000 would follow. The judge regarded that as plainly impermissible. In a particularly clear passage, she said: “It is plainly an abuse of process to bring duplicate defamation claims in respect of the Article in both the County Court and the High Court.” She went on to hold that, although the County Court claim came first in time, it had been brought “for the express purpose of imposing pressure in respect of the (then threatened) High Court claim”.

That reasoning is important. In practice, litigants can sometimes be tempted to use lower-value or more accessible proceedings tactically, especially where they are seeking a quick retraction, removal or apology. This judgment is a warning that the courts will look beyond form to substance. If proceedings are duplicated, deployed tactically or used to create pressure rather than to pursue a claim properly, the court is likely to view that as abusive. The judge was also critical of the claimant’s attempt to add a further £5,000 when requesting default judgment, purportedly as interest, finding there was “no justification” for doing so.

The High Court claim: failure to serve still matters

The Defendants also challenged the separate High Court claim. Although the court declined to dismiss it under CPR 7.7 alone, it ultimately granted the defendants an extension of time to pursue a jurisdiction challenge and then struck out the claim form because it had never been validly served within the four-month period. The position was especially difficult for the Claimant because the Defendants’ solicitors had expressly explained what was wrong in terms of service of the claim form, stated that they were instructed to accept service and provided both email and postal details for valid service. Despite that, no effective service followed or even an attempt to rectify the issues with service.

Mrs Justice Steyn was unimpressed by the suggestion that service should be retrospectively validated or that time should effectively be extended informally. She held that there was no “good reason” to authorise alternative service where the Claimant could easily have served the claim correctly using the details that had been provided. The judgment is a useful illustration of a wider point: once a defect in service has been identified and a straightforward route to proper service has been offered, it becomes much harder to persuade the court to rescue the claim later if the Claimant has failed to come to its own aid in this regard.

Practical lessons for defamation and privacy disputes

From a solicitor’s perspective, there are several practical lessons to take from this decision. First, service rules matter enormously. They are not mere procedural formalities and the court will not overlook defects simply because the Defendant knew about the claim. Secondly, defamation claims need to be brought in the correct forum and in the correct way. Trying to use one claim as bargaining pressure for another is a serious mistake. Thirdly, if a problem with service is pointed out early, it must be addressed immediately and properly. Waiting, improvising or assuming the court will validate informal steps later is dangerous.

For Claimants in reputation cases, that can feel frustrating, particularly where the underlying publication is serious and upsetting. But the reality is that defamation and privacy litigation is highly technical. The legal merits may be strong, yet a case can still fail at an early stage if it is not handled correctly from the outset. For Defendants and publishers, the case is a reminder that close attention to service, jurisdiction and procedural compliance can be decisive. A robust procedural response may defeat a claim before the court ever needs to decide meaning, serious harm, truth or public interest.