Sun fails to get footballer's gagging order lifted

Lawyers acting for the Sun failed today to overturn a privacy injunction brought by a Premier League footballer to stop the paper writing about his private life.

The Sun reports: "A judge today refused to scrap a draconian injunction preventing The Sun from identifying the Prem star who romped with Big Brother's Imogen Thomas."

Before the hearing, a Sun spokesman said: "Following publication on the front page of a Scottish newspaper it is clear this injunction is unworkable.

"When the Prime Minister says on breakfast television that he knows the identity of the footballer, it is time for the courts to do the right thing and end a situation where readers of some newspapers but not others are allowed to know the worst kept secret in the country."

High Court lifts injunction on Sir Fred Goodwin

The privacy injunction granting anonymity to Sir Fred Goodwin, the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, was lifted at the High Court today.

The existence of Sir Fred's injunction had already been made public by an MP using parliamentary privilege.

The MP, Lib Dem MP John Hemming, asked in the House of Commons: "In a secret hearing, Fred Goodwin has obtained a super-injunction preventing him from being identified as a banker."

He then asked: "Will the Government have a debate or a statement on the issue of freedom of speech and whether there is one law for the rich, such as Fred Goodwin, and another law for the poor?"

The MP's question raised speculation about the nature of the information which Sir Fred is trying to protect, but the media was prevented from disclosing any details under the terms of the injunction.

The High Court ruling to lift the order followed a further intervention today by Lord Stoneham who used parliamentary privilege to reveal more details in the House of Lords. He said the injunction was being used to "hide an alleged relationship" involving Sir Fred and a senior colleague. (see post below)

Mr Justice Tugendhat, sitting in London, varied the injunction to allow publication of Sir Fred's name, but not details of the alleged relationship and the name of the woman said to be involved.

The Sun said today: "A court gag preventing us from naming Fred the Shred as the banker behind a super-injunction has been lifted this afternoon.

"We won the right to formally name the banker after a Lib Dem peer spoke out in the House of Lords today. The banning order prevented publication of details of a 'sexual relationship'.

"It is understood that the former RBS boss did not oppose the lifting of the gag."

Burchill: 'Why are injunctions only used by men?'

Julie Burchill lays into privacy injunctions in her Independent column today claiming that they are only used by men to gag women.

She says: "Though injunctions are modern inventions, their intention is as old as Adam; they seek to return relations between the sexes to the level of those idealised in Downton Abbey and shown in surprisingly harsh reality in the earlier and far superior Upstairs, Downstairs, when rich men could do exactly as they pleased to parlour maids, prostitutes and showgirls and get away with it.

"If there is a law which is used by one gender only, we should surely be very suspicious of it, as the MP Louise Bagshawe has pointed out. The feeling that women and girls should be seen and not heard, which the law seems to perpetuate with the light punishments it hands out to rapists, child abusers and wife-killers, has now been extended to take in this new development whereby men, if they are rich enough, can be heard and not seen.

"The monstrous regiment of right-wing judges who haven't heard of Emmeline Pankhurst is compounded by the liberal lawyers who seem to believe that once you have ticked the box that says brotherhood of man, you can treat women in a way that you would never dream of treating ethnic minorities."

She also tells a great story about being doorstepped by the Daily Mail: "When I had an adulterous affair in the 1990s, and the Daily Mail found out and sent a man in a grubby mac to doorstep us at my girl's flat, I actually tapped on his window when he fell asleep in his car outside, all the better to give a fellow hack a fighting chance of going back to the DM with his smutty story."

Cameron 'uneasy' about spate of privacy gags

Prime Minister David Cameron has said he feels "uneasy" about the development of privacy law in the UK via court injunctions which stop the media reporting on the private lives of public figures.

He argued that Parliament, not judges, should decide on the balance between the freedom of the press and the right to privacy.

Cameron was challenged about the use of injunctions during a question-and-answer session at the General Motors factory in Luton, BBC News reports.

He said that judges were using cases based on the Human Rights Act to develop a privacy law that left him feeling "a little uneasy".

However, Mr Cameron admitted he had not got all the the answers and said he needed to think some more about it.

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming has said he may use parliamentary privilege to name some of those covered by privacy injunctions.

Times goes blankety blank over privacy gags: Telegraph on 'worldwide' ban on naming tv star

The Times today blanks out parts of its story - both in print and online - on the latest privacy injunction granted to a football star to emphasise what readers are not allowed to know.

While the Telegraph reports that an unprecedented worldwide privacy order has been imposed to stop the media reporting on a tv star's private life - even online.

It says: "A Premier League footballer won a legal gag yesterday against a topless model, preventing her from revealing details of their six-month affair.

"The married sportsman, who plays for ****, is using controversial human rights laws to prevent details of his adulterous relationship from being made public.

"The secrecy orders override the traditional principle of open justice in favour of the right to privacy or to prevent the risk of harm to family members who may be embarrassed by the revelations.

"Politicians had pledged that human rights laws would not be used by the courts to introduce a legal right to privacy behind the back of Parliament.

"**** had been accused of having a six-month affair with Imogen Thomas, a glamour model who has appeared as a housemate in Channel 4’s Big Brother."

The Telegraph reports: "A High Court judge has issued an unprecedented gagging order in an attempt to prevent details of a television star’s private life being published, even on the internet.

"Mr Justice Eady, who has been at the centre of most recent controversial libel and privacy cases, made the injunction "against the world" rather than just against national newspapers and broadcasters.

"His order seeks to prevent the publication of “intimate photographs” of a married public figure after a woman tried to sell them for a “large sum of money". The judge said the woman “owed” the claimant, identified only as OPQ, a “duty of confidence” and breaching his privacy would damage the health of the man and his family.

"His order is intended to cover discussion of the case online as well as in traditional media, despite the difficulties in enforcing it. The injunction contra mundum is intended to be never-ending and, as its Latin name suggests, applies to the entire world."

The Telegraph adds: "It is understood that it is the first time that such an order has been granted in a privacy case. They were issued on personal safety grounds in the cases of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who murdered James Bulger; the child killer Mary Bell, and Maxine Carr, the former girlfriend of the Soham killer Ian Huntley.

"The ruling takes secrecy laws to a new level, marking a further advance in the steps the courts are prepared to take to protect high-profile figures and to restrict the right to freedom of expression."

MacKenzie tells Sun readers: 'Journalists know who is protected by injunctions but you don't'

Kelin MacKenzie tells readers of the Sun today that while he and "most media folk" know the names of the public figures protected by privacy injunctions the public don't.

He says: "There is currently a dangerous two track-society.

"There are those that know and I'm one of them. And there are those that are denied knowing and that's you, dear reader."

He suggests that somebody could set up a site in America to run all the names and allegations against the people the courts are protecting and the High Court couldn't touch them.

In a blast at the judges, Mackezie says: "There is a state in America that has a phrase summing up its attitude. It says: Live free or die.

"The High Court and its silk panty-wearing judges - hiding their own sexual peculiarities - have torn up the phrase.

"I despise them."

The Sun has a full page rundown on all the privacy injunctions granted to public figures under the headline: 'Doesn't it make you gag.'

They include a famous actor, tv star, top footballers, a soccer manager, various sportsmen and a tv journalist.

The latest injunction, according to the Sun is a married entertainer who has cheated on his wife with an actress and has left the show they both appeared in.

The Sun says: "Hypocritical showbiz stars, sports idols and high-profile public figures lap up positive publicity. And they often cash in on their popularity and wholesome image with mega salaries and huge fees from companies whose products they endorse.

"But when they misbehave and things turn sour, they go for the gag in order to protect false impressions - and their massive incomes."

Alphabet soup: Listing all the privacy injunctions

Judith Townend has compiled a list of privacy injunction hearings on her Meeja Law website.

It reads a bit like alphabet soup. For example: RJA v AJR, (4 March 2011); YYG v PJK¸(11 March 2011): ZAM v CFW and another (7 March 2011): YYZ v YVR (4 February 2011); OPQ v BJM (2 February 2011).

She points out: "Limited information is available about privacy injunction hearings in British courts but sometimes the press cries ‘super injunction’ when it’s simply not.

"A super injunction is where its very existence cannot be reported – as in the cases involving Trafigura (2009) and John Terry (2010)."

I like the way The Times described super-injunctions in a leader: "Even Donald Rumsfeld would be shocked at how the British public are being kept in the dark. As judges grant more super-injunctions to frisky millionaire footballers, high-flying bankers and tycoons that enable these men (and they are mostly men) to shield their affairs from the public’s gaze — for no better reason than that it would embarrass them, or might dent their sponsorship deals were their affairs to come to light — the public not only don’t know who these people are, they don’t even know they don’t know."

Not all the privacy hearings involve the press and some are linked to alleged blackmail threats.

Sun gagged by privacy injunctions from 'world famous' actor and Premiership footballer

The Sun has been gagged by two privacy injunctions stopping the paper naming an actor and a Premiership footballer while revealing details of their sex lives.

According to the Sun: "ONE of soccer star Wayne Rooney's vice girls has revealed she also bedded a married leading actor. The luvvie who romped with Helen Wood, 24, cannot be named after a judge gagged The Sun....A High Court judge said exposing his cheating would invade his privacy."

In the other case, the Sun says: "A PREMIER League star last night gagged The Sun after we found him romping with busty Big Brother babe Imogen Thomas behind his wife's back."

The existence of the gagging order involving the actor was first disclosed by the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, when newspapers were banned from naming either party or reporting why the order had been sought.

A High Court judge yesterday extended the injunction which protects the actor’s anonymity, but lifted a ban on naming Helen Wood and detailing the nature of her allegations.

The actor was described by Mr Justice King as “a world famous celebrity”.

The Sun links the two stories on its front page today with the headline: "Two Cheats Hide Behind The Law."