Footballer legal action against Twitter

[Korgeta]

This is a somewhat complex case, but the summary of the matter is a football player for a top english football club called out a super injunction to prevent details of himself and his affair from being publized on the the media. The super injuction did not cover the woman who twas involved and as such Thomas Imogen has been left out in public whilst the guy has maintained anonymity.

This however exploded when members on Twitter got word of the player and posted his name online yet the papers and the BBC cannot show his name, other then showing an error of judgment by the player and his legal team, the matter had escalated when he challenged Twitter to expose who revealed the details and suddenly hundreds of members have now posted messages on who this player is making the matter far more complicated.

Ultimately it comes down between freedom of speech vs right to privacy and the UK courts taking on the might of the Internet and its social groups like twitter.

One ting that is clear is that once again the digital media is making a mockery of traditional law and shows how far behind the non digital media is.

Link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13482403

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13473070

[cosmicalstorm]

Then who is he?

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Assuming Korgeta lives in the UK, it's illegal for him to tell you unless he doesn't know about the injunction, which he clearly does.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

It's Ryan Giggs.

[cosmicalstorm]

That is a very strange legal idea.

[Sir Sirius]

Seriously? In the UK a court can simply illegalize mentioning someones name in public? If so I must admit that the legislation permitting this the most bizarre and dangerous item of law I have heard of recently. Evidently freedom of speech isn't much valued in the UK.

Ironically, since I do not follow soccer or reality TV-shows I had literally not heard of either Ryan Giggs or Imogen Thomas prior to reading this thread.

[Teebs]

Seriously? In the UK a court can simply illegalize mentioning someones name in public? If so I must admit that the legislation permitting this the most bizarre and dangerous item of law I have heard of recently. Evidently freedom of speech isn't much valued in the UK.

Ironically, since I do not follow soccer or reality TV-shows I had literally not heard of either Ryan Giggs or Imogen Thomas prior to reading this thread.

It's privacy laws that if there is no public interest in revealing details about someone's private life then the courts can prevent publication of details of some act/event. I do think it's gone too far, but I don't see why people shouldn't have their privacy protected in many cases. I can think of at least one that was granted where there definitely was a public interest in publication (sadly being in the UK...) and I don't have that much sympathy for celebrities wanting to cover up their sexual infidelities. But, in principle I think a right to privacy is valuable so long as it's balanced against free speech. It's just a question of where the courts put that balance.

[Falarica]

Seriously? In the UK a court can simply illegalize mentioning someones name in public? If so I must admit that the legislation permitting this the most bizarre and dangerous item of law I have heard of recently.

The injunction does not stop you from mentioning someone's name in public only linking that person/company to some whatever is covered by the injunction. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Côte_ ... waste_dump for how these 'super-injunctions' have worked.

Evidently freedom of speech isn't much valued in the UK.

Parliament isn't covered by this so many MPs and Peers have been breaking the injunctions because they can, making them void effectively, precisely because of the impact on freedom of speech. Which gives rise to the interesting constitutional predicament of parliamentarians defying orders of a court...

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Parliament isn't covered by this so many MPs and Peers have been breaking the injunctions because they can, making them void effectively, precisely because of the impact on freedom of speech. Which gives rise to the interesting constitutional predicament of parliamentarians defying orders of a court...

It's not really a predicament, IMO. It's a pretty well established principle that MPs and Peers can give the courts the finger on stuff like this while they're in the chamber, and there's nothing that can be done against them. They're specifically allowed to say whatever they want, no matter if it's illegal or not, with the exception of traditions like not criticising the Royal Family.

[evilsoup]

Parliamentary Privilege - MPs can get away with slander, contempt of court and even breaking the official secrets act, so long as they do it during Parliamentary proceedings.

And yes, these superinjunctions are ridiculous. Personally I think Parliament should pass an actual privacy law, rather than just allow the courts to invent one on the fly (as is happening at the moment). Something like ... 'you can't publish people's private information, unless there's a public interest argument', but set the bar fairly low (i.e., the public doesn't have a right to know if x footballer is having an affair, but y politician is fair game).

[Dartzap]

A Scottish newspaper "revealed" who it was earlier as well, as they come under Scots law, and no injunction has been issued by a Scottish judge. An island divided indeed......

[Mr. Coffee]

After googling Imogen Thomas, I'd say that anything having to do with her should be a matter of public record. Goddamn, girl's a hottie and this dude doesn't want people to know "Yeah, I tapped that..."? What the fuck is wrong with some people...

[Teebs]

Parliamentary Privilege - MPs can get away with slander, contempt of court and even breaking the official secrets act, so long as they do it during Parliamentary proceedings.

And yes, these superinjunctions are ridiculous. Personally I think Parliament should pass an actual privacy law, rather than just allow the courts to invent one on the fly (as is happening at the moment). Something like ... 'you can't publish people's private information, unless there's a public interest argument', but set the bar fairly low (i.e., the public doesn't have a right to know if x footballer is having an affair, but y politician is fair game).

That's exactly what Parliament did. They just don't like the results and are now making out that it's all down to judicial activism.

Human Rights Act 1998 specifically Schedule 1 which lays out the rights the act gives. Article 8 is the right to respect of private and family life. There is also Article 10 covering freedom of expression. The courts (claim to) balance these two rights using the public interest to decide on super injunctions.

Edited because of posting screw up.

[Broomstick]

Well, then when discussing this footballer's pecadillos people can just refer to him as He Who Must Not Be Named.

:::: cue laughter ::::

[Korgeta]

Assuming Korgeta lives in the UK, it's illegal for him to tell you unless he doesn't know about the injunction, which he clearly does.

Yup english i am indeed, I could actually mention his name, in fact over 30,000 twitter accounts have posted the name of the player just in the UK alone and has believed to had been read by the millions. I didn't wan to mention his name outright in case of any trouble, that sounds crazy but so was the idea of 'Giggs' demanding twitter to reveal the ID of those who revealed his identity online which in turn lead to thousands of twitter and online blogs to reveal his name, its a mockery of a law as there is no way it can prosecute against such a number. And as pointed out the papers are starting to be a bit brazen and reveal clues or even his name because of what's going online. The injunction only affects the english press, it has no influence online, foreign or the scottish press and the argument is that the english press cannot deny reporting on public knowlege which has occurred by this mistake to take twitter to court.

Really injunctions should not be used to hide any sexual affairs or anything trivial like that, It is intrusion but they only have themselves to blame. However Papers setting up stories by sting operations and phone hackings I don't agree with and if an injunction is there to prevent that then it should be used for just that and not to hide on any 'misadventure'

[Broomstick]

Classic case of an attempt to cover something up drawing even more attention to it than would otherwise be the case.

[Tanasinn]

Provoking the internet is one of the fastest ways to get exactly the opposite result you want. What a moron.

[Korgeta]

Here this link just shows the absurdity of it all.

http://www.sportsgrid.com/media/ryan-gi ... en-thomas/

scotland is next door to england and as one member pointed out, they can publish the content but here we can't. Maybe the injunction may have been effective say even 30yrs ago but everyone is connected to the internet, even kids with iphones!

[Mr. Coffee]

No, seriously, I know the guy's married and all, but if you got Imogen Thomas in the sack why in the hell would you try and hide this fact? I'd be walking around telling everyone I knew about it and might even make a website just to make sure the message got to a wider audience.

[Korgeta]

The guy has two children and didn't want them to be bullied at school should the truth be found out, also (if it is the same guy of course) then a long while back he was known as a 'woman beater' for beating up his ex wife at the time, and since then spent the years improving his image, fair to say that he'll be reminded of his past as well as this if it all goes wrong.

[Chirios]

There's a bit of confusion here.

The player didn't release a super-injunction, only an injunction, which means that the media wasn't allowed to report the fact. The reason why he's demanding that twitter release the information is because it's highly likely that a certain tabloid reporter was the one who originally leaked the information, and thus is liable under the terms of the injunction.

Also, the reason why the courts allowed Gigg's (if it was Gigg's, I think it was but I'm not sure) to have the injunction in the first place. I read the case judgement, and it turns out that he had ended the affair months ago, apologised to his wife, and then tried to make amends; but then Imogen called him up and "suggested" that if he didn't pay her £100,000 she would go to the tabloids. At one point she claimed that tabloid papers were outside the house "suggested" that she would go out and spill if he didn't pay her. He refused, she went to the papers, he sought an injunction.

The judge in the case, one Justice Eady said a quote which pretty much sums up the opinion most UK judges have when it comes to this kind of issue:

There can be no assumption of freedom of speech when it comes to privacy cases.

and

[A]s in so many 'kiss and tell' cases it seems to me that the answer ... is not far to seek. Indeed, it was not even argued that publication would serve the public interest.

The fact is, there was absolutely no purpose in reporting this story. All it would do is ruin a families life for no reason other than certain people in the public would find it funny. Of course that's a bit of a moot point now that the story has been leaked anyway, but the judge was right to order the injunction.

[Chirios]

Here is the case where the injunction was ordered.

[Korgeta]

There's a bit of confusion here.

The player didn't release a super-injunction, only an injunction, which means that the media wasn't allowed to report the fact. The reason why he's demanding that twitter release the information is because it's highly likely that a certain tabloid reporter was the one who originally leaked the information, and thus is liable under the terms of the injunction.

Also, the reason why the courts allowed Gigg's (if it was Gigg's, I think it was but I'm not sure) to have the injunction in the first place. I read the case judgement, and it turns out that he had ended the affair months ago, apologised to his wife, and then tried to make amends; but then Imogen called him up and "suggested" that if he didn't pay her £100,000 she would go to the tabloids. At one point she claimed that tabloid papers were outside the house "suggested" that she would go out and spill if he didn't pay her. He refused, she went to the papers, he sought an injunction.

The judge in the case, one Justice Eady said a quote which pretty much sums up the opinion most UK judges have when it comes to this kind of issue

The thing is the sun argues that there was no strong evidence of blackmail only the claim of a possible agenda of blackmail to which the judges agreed there was no concrete evidence to support there was blackmail. Imogen is gagged though on not being able to tell her side of the story meaning we only have the person who enforced the injunction to take into consideration. 'giggs' may have been blackmailed there is no strong evidence of that, the courts should not be used to hide a personal mistake by their own making such as starting an affair.

[Mr. Coffee]

The guy has two children and didn't want them to be bullied at school should the truth be found out, also (if it is the same guy of course) then a long while back he was known as a 'woman beater' for beating up his ex wife at the time, and since then spent the years improving his image, fair to say that he'll be reminded of his past as well as this if it all goes wrong.

Really? I mean, you gotta be pretty fucked in the head to be a bully in the first place, but bullying someone because their dad managed to put the pork sword to some premium strange is straight out fucking weaponized country western retarded. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with English people?

Also, if that's what Welsh women look like I need to go on vacation in Wales sometime. Maybe lap the Mumbles Mile a few times and see what I wake up next to in the morning.

[HMS Sophia]

Also, if that's what Welsh women look like I need to go on vacation in Wales sometime. Maybe lap the Mumbles Mile a few times and see what I wake up next to in the morning.

She's quite definitely the exception, not the rule...