Laurence Fox has been ordered to pay £180,000 in damages after he called a former Stonewall trustee and a drag queen “paedophiles” on social media.

The actor-turned-campaigner was successfully sued over a row on Twitter, now known as X, where he made derogatory remarks about Simon Blake and Colin Seymour, who performs under the name Crystal, in an exchange about a decision by Sainsbury’s to mark Black History Month in October 2020.

The Reclaim Party founder, who said at the time that he would boycott the supermarket, countersued the pair and the broadcaster Nicola Thorp over tweets accusing him of racism.

In a judgment in January, Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled in favour of Blake and Seymour, dismissing Fox’s counter-claims.

In a ruling on Thursday, the judge said Fox must pay Blake and Seymour £90,000 each in damages. She said: “By calling Mr Blake and Mr Seymour paedophiles, Mr Fox subjected them to a wholly undeserved public ordeal. It was a gross, groundless and indefensible libel, with distressing and harmful real-world consequences for them.”

At a hearing in March, Lorna Skinner KC, for Blake and Seymour, had said the pair should receive “at least six-figure sums” from Fox, calling a suggestion the pair should only receive a “modest” award “nonsense”.

However, Patrick Green KC, for Fox, said the starting point of damages should be between £10,000 and £20,000, with the total being “substantially lowered” due to an apology from Fox and the absence of malice.

Before Thursday’s ruling, Fox described the original judgment as a “bullies charter” and said he disagreed “profoundly” with the result. He said in a post on Twitter/X: “I don’t know what the judge will award these people. But the costs of these proceedings are enormous. So a whopper of a cheque is getting written in the next few days.”

Fox added: “We are seeing the courts used maliciously across the west and that is a very concerning trend. So enjoy the victory guys and I hope it is short-lived!”

The judge declined to make an order requiring Fox to publish a summary of her decision on his Twitter/X account.