The High Court has thrown out a defamation claim by the founder of the Solicitors from Hell website against Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson.

Rick Kordowski began legal proceedings after a blog from Professor John Flood had alleged that Hudson claimed Kordowski was a ‘criminal’.

The exchange had been made after Prof Flood, from the University of Westminster, and Hudson had finished appearing on a Radio 4 discussion programme about the website, which publishes claims about solicitors’ alleged wrongdoing.

Flood had suggested to Hudson that the Law Society’s attempt to sue SfH could be seen as ‘muzzling free speech’, a suggestion the chief executive denied. Hudson said the Society’s legal action focused on Kordowski’s methods of collecting payment to remove comments from the website.

In a High Court judgment today, Mr Justice Tugendhat dismissed Kordowski’s application and ruled that the libel action against Hudson be struck out.

The judge said there was ‘no evidence of any real or substantial harm to Mr Kordowski’ and that proceedings amounted to an abuse of the process of the court.

It also pointed out that Kordowski had repeated the allegation against himself on the SfH website in September.

The judgment added: ‘It is an unusual feature of this case that Mr Kordowski is not concerned to prevent republication, but has himself participated in republication of the words he complains of.

‘That suggests that he does not share the objective that defamation claimants usually have, namely to prevent republication of the words complained of.’

A Law Society spokesperson said: ‘Mr Kordowski, the owner of the Solicitors from Hell website, had brought a claim for slander against the Law Society's chief executive. An application was made for the claim to be struck out. The court granted the application, on the basis the proceedings were an abuse of process.

'Mr Kordowski was ordered to pay £14,000 in costs and his application for permission to appeal was refused.’