Tag Archives: Justice Tugendhat

Guardian: Ryan Giggs named in court as injunction footballer

Leave a reply

Copyright: Martin Rickett/PA Archive/Press Association Images

Ryan Giggs has been named in court for the first time as the footballer behind an injunction taken out against the Sun, the Guardian reports.

According to the news site, the footballer “agreed to lift the anonymity injunction” in a hearing at the high court in London earlier today.

Giggs took out the injunction in order to prevent the tabloid revealing an affair.

Thousands ignored the court ruling and named him as the footballer in question on Twitter, leaving journalists in a “strange situation” concerning the reporting of his name.

The Guardian states:

Hugh Tomlinson QC, counsel for Giggs, told the court that the footballer had been subject to “large scale breaches of the order by malign individuals”.

“The claimant’s name is in the public domain contrary to court orders,” he added. “The claimant has consented to the removal of the anonymity order completely.”

Mr Justice Tugendhat said: “Anonymity no longer applies and has not applied since 1 February.”

According to the Guardian, Mr Justice Tugendhat is considering “a claim by Giggs for damages for alleged misuse of private information by the Sun”.

Giggs is also seeking an injunction “to restrain future publication of private information”, according to the report.

The court heard that the anonymity order that prevented the media from naming Giggs was lifted on 1 February. However, an “administrative error” by Giggs’s solicitors meant the Sun was not informed.

The counsel for News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the Sun, reportedly told the court the injunction claim should be thrown out.

The demise of the superinjunction?

Leave a reply

Writing in MediaGuardian this morning, Index on Censorship news editor, Padraig Reidy, discusses whether last week’s ruling by Justice Tugendhat in the John Terry case means courts will be less willing to issue super-injunctions.

The increasingly aggressive pursuit of privacy actions is often an attempt to entirely dictate what is published about a person (or in the case of Trafigura, a corporation). Friday’s ruling, combined with Trafigura’s epic failure to suppress information, suggests that courts may be less willing to issue such injunctions in future. And perhaps sensible solicitors will be less willing to seek them.

In another Guardian.co.uk piece, Guardian columnist Marcel Berlins argues that ‘unusual’ elements of Terry’s case affected the Justice Tugendhat’s decision on this occasion:

Perhaps, post-Tugendhat, judges will not grant injunctions quite so readily, but there will be no revolution. And predictions of the demise of the superinjunction have been greatly exaggerated.