Super Injunctions: names revealed?

recyclebin wrote: »

Giggs is apparently suing Twitter. I'd prefer if he concentrated on Barcelona next Saturday to be honest.

A Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Herald, has published a clearly identifiable photograph of a Premier League footballer with his eyes blacked out, claiming him to be at the centre of a high-profile court attempt to silence allegations about his private life. Given that to do so could lead to his identity becoming known, some lawyers would argue that this newspaper could be in contempt of court for having identified that newspaper. You may need to read that sentence twice.

It gets worse. A high-profile journalist on a leading British newspaper has made a comment on Twitter about a Premier League footballer for which he, or she, now risks being prosecuted for contempt of court. For legal reasons, The Times is not at liberty to name the footballer, or the journalist, or the newspaper for which he, or she, works. This would remain true even if The Times was that newspaper, which may, or may not, be the case.

All of this is absurd, and doubly so because you, the reader, very possibly already know all about it, including the bits that we are not at liberty to print. If you do not, and are sitting at a computer, you could probably find full details in a matter of moments. Although we may not tell you how.

The ongoing attempts of high-profile individuals to use injunctions, super or otherwise, to keep their misdeeds out of the papers has moved from sinister, to farcical, to something closer to madness. Social media, the same technology which kept protesters on Middle Eastern streets one step ahead of the law during the Arab Spring, is now the predominant arena in which the practice is being exposed as hollow. Schillings, the London media law firm which represents many celebrities and footballers, is now attempting a rear-guard action, targeting individuals, such as the journalist mentioned above, who have named those who, like Lord Voldemort, must not be.

This is a profoundly cynical move. Certainly, it will not help those whose identities are supposed to be shielded by injunctions. With every step their lawyers take — from injunction to superinjunction to writ to threat — mentions online of those involved soar. With various horses so evidently bolted, the logic for pursuing individual tweeters seems dubious. One has to question whether any celebrity who pays a lawyer a huge fee to keep his private life private and sees it smeared across the web as a direct result is really getting his money’s worth.

Cyberspace is a tricky place to bully. Organisations of many sorts have struggled to control the flow of information online, all with at best very limited success. Legal muscle has not yet eradicated the illegal spread of Hollywood films, Top 40 music, the home sex tapes of stars or the classified documents of US intelligence. It is deluded at best to pretend it can more easily suppress the few small words which make up a fact.

Websites should of course obey the law, and the people who use them should, too. Yet the law over injunctions is so frequently and easily flouted because it is a bad law. It is an affront that rich and powerful people should seek to pay to tell the public what they can and cannot read, but it is also, increasingly obviously, a myth that such suppression is even possible. Publishing in Scotland, the Sunday Herald is theoretically free from the constraints of injunctions, as are publishers from the United States, or elsewhere. Ordinary users of Twitter, likewise, cannot be expected to be bound by the terms of an injunction they have never seen. Why should representatives of traditional media be at such disadvantage, even when using the same technology?

Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, declared last week that the internet was “making an ass of the law”. In fact, the law needs no such help. Contempt of court is a crime, but contempt for Britain’s injunction habit is close to universal.

Richard Dower wrote: »

^ you haven't a clue about Imogen, her rep. her past history, selling stories, tipping off paps. The original Sun story quoted "a pal" aka Chelsea White...her bessie, it's a well established to use "a pal" to leak a story. You hear about the swine flu fake story they created?....Chelsea took the pics, they pocketed the cash.

Chelsea even let the cat out of bag on Twitter, when Imogen was supposed to be in quarantine in her house Chelsea Tweeted they were both going out on the town, she then deleted the Tweets.

I suggest you Google, anyone who has read the BB forum on DS knows her long history. She actively worked with the tabloids, why does she claim she would never have sold her story....then sold her story!

He put out the injunction becuase he KNEW she was about to kiss n tell.