Terry “super-injunction” lifted

The High Court has lifted a “super-injunction” stopping the media reporting on the private life of England’s football captain, John Terry.

Mr Justice Tugendhat removed the order preventing publication of the Chelsea centre back’s alleged affair with team-mate Wayne Bridge’s ex-girlfriend, and any photographs relating to it. Terry’s lawyers secured the injunction last week after learning the News of the World intended to run the story.

Tugendhat J said the information was already in wide circulation, and that he thought Terry’s real concerns were his sponsorship deals.

In his judgment, LNS v Persons unknown [2010] EWHC 119 (QB) he expresses surprise at the mysterious nature of the injunction request and regret that, since no notice has been given to any newspaper, he has not had the benefit of hearing their arguments in opposition.

On the question of privacy, he says: “The evidence is that there has been wide circulation amongst those involved in the sport in question, including agents and others, and not just amongst those directly engaged in the sport. “If the injunction ought otherwise be granted, I would not refuse it on this basis. But the fact that the information has become as widely available to so many people, means that an injunction is less necessary or proportionate than would otherwise be the case.”

Declining to renew the injunction, he says: “If (as I think likely) the real concern of the applicant in this case is the effect of publication upon the sponsorship business, then damages would be an adequate remedy if LNS succeeds at trial.”

Razi Mireskandari, partner at Simons Muirhead and Burton, says: “The lessons from this are that if you know who the publisher of the story is likely to be then you need to tell the court, there needs to be a genuine reason for a super-injunction, the person who is complaining needs to give first hand evidence to the court, and if you are bringing a privacy argument then the fact your finances will be affected undermines your argument.”

This is the second high-profile defeat for so-called ‘super-injunctions’, which forbid disclosure of the fact an injunction has been made and therefore only become known if they are successfully challenged in court. An attempt by Carter-Ruck solicitors to stop a Parliamentary question being tabled over the activities of oil trading company Trafigura in the Ivory Coast foundered last year after the injunction was revealed by Twitter users.

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