Godfrey sued for libel, citing Demon's failure to remove the forged message at the time of his initial complaint.

Having struck out the core of Demon's defence in his first judgment, Morland J considered a further application by the defendant (Demon) to amend its defence to include a large number of extracts from other internet postings that the defendant sought to claim were Laurence Godfrey's words.

At that time Godfrey had had no opportunity to admit or deny these allegations, since they were made by way of proposed amendments to the defence.

However, in the event these allegations were not proven and at the conclusion of the case an agreed statement was made in open court in which it was stated (inter alia): “Demon is also here today ... to apologise to Dr Godfrey for not removing the postings from its servers and for alleging in his defence that Dr Godfrey had deliberately provoked them, a contention which it now withdraws”.

Media lawyers have described the case's resultant restriction on freedom of expression as "disproportionate" and suggested that it may not survive a challenge under the Human Rights Act.