MR JUSTICE WARBY Approved Judgment 10. Monroe v Hopkins [2017] EWHC 433 (QB) When Ms Hopkins joined Twitter is not disclosed in the evidence, but the evidence is that her homepage is very popular, with over 5.7 million visits in each of April and May 2015. It is an agreed fact at the relevant times she had about 570,000 followers, and had tweeted about 44,000 times. The evidence makes clear that she was tweeting frequently. By way of example, the Twitter Analytics for her account show that on 18 May 2015 she sent her first tweet at 7:07am, and the second tweet complained of, sent at 21:47, was her 30th of the day. Ms Penny 11. Another character who features quite prominently in this case, though not as a witness, is another journalist Laurie Penny, a columnist for the New Statesman magazine. Her Twitter handle at the relevant time was @PennyRed. As this summary suggests, she is of the political left. In March 2016 she had about 128,000 followers. A reasonable estimate of her followers in May 2015 is 100,000. The history in short 12. On Thursday 7 May 2015 there was a General Election. On 8 May the Conservative Party formed a Government. On Saturday 9 May, there was an “anti-austerity” demonstration in London. It turned violent, and the Memorial to the Women of WWII in Whitehall was vandalised. The words “Fuck Tory Scum” were spray painted on it. This act was widely reported in the news and elsewhere, with photographs of those words sprayed on the plinth. The act caused public outrage and widespread public condemnation. 13. It is Ms Monroe’s unchallenged evidence, which I accept, that she was aware of the graffiti via the news media and, despite her general support for anti-austerity groups, “as a proud member of a military family and a feminist” she flatly opposed and was “sickened” by it. She agrees with an official statement issued from Downing Street at the time that this was a “despicable display of disrespect for those who fought and died for their country”. 14. On the evening of 9 May 2015 there was Twitter activity relevant to this claim:(1) At 8pm, a Twitter user with the handle @Little_G2 tweeted @PennyRed, sending a photograph of the vandalised memorial and asking @PennyRed to comment on it. (2) At 8.01pm @PennyRed commented: “@Little_G2 @CCriadoPerez actually, I think that's fine, and many of those women would have agreed. Sadly they were not able to vote.” This comment was RT’d 25 times. (3) At 8.04pm @PennyRed tweeted a photograph of the vandalised war memorial with the accompanying words: “I don't have a problem with this. The bravery of past generations does not oblige us to be cowed today.” This tweet generated a deal of comment, much of it adverse. This tweet was RT'd 356 times, liked 226 times and replied to in 618 tweets. (4) At 9.40pm Ms Hopkins tweeted a photograph of the vandalised war memorial, and a link to @PennyRed’s tweet of 8.04pm with these observations: