Sun attacks 'disgraceful' Appeal Court ruling which stopped media unmasking 'cheating' sportsman

The Sun starts its leader on the front page today in a blistering attack on yesterday's Appeal Court ruling that stops the press naming a sportsman and calls it a "Cheat's Charter".

The Sun says: "THE more a cheating celebrity drops his trousers, the more the law will cover up for him.

That is the disgraceful outcome of yesterday's Appeal Court ruling allowing a well-known sportsman accused of cheating on his partner with two different women to keep his identity secret.

This "Cheat's Charter" is a terrible blow to the public's right to know the truth about celebrities who hide shameful secrets behind a hypocritical veneer of respectability.

Showbiz personalities, sports stars and politicians now have an incentive to carry on betraying their partners - because the more they do it, the more courts protect their identities.

It also creates two-tier justice. If you can afford top lawyers you can buy secrecy denied to others.

Yesterday was the day Britain became a judicial banana republic.

The nation that created the rule of law bent its knee to a sportsman who fornicates his way through life like a dung hill rooster.

The Appeal Court decided because the sportsman had been named in the past over sex allegations, he was entitled to privacy over claims he had been up to his tricks again.

This, supposedly, was to stop the public working out who he was - as if that was all that mattered. What about his behaviour and the impact it would have on those who admire him?

This wrong ruling stands morality on its head. It licences depravity.

Along with the rise of the superinjunction, this is another alarming step towards secret justice.

Superinjunctions are court orders sought by the rich and famous to gag newspapers. They are so strict papers cannot even tell their readers a superinjunction has been granted.

An ordinary person would have no chance of obtaining such a ruling.

But the wealthy, with their lawyers well versed in repressive European privacy laws, are indulged.

This culture of secrecy undermines public life by allowing vice and hypocrisy to flourish while papers are powerless to expose it.

It speaks volumes that Westminster stands by as Press freedom is eroded.

European privacy rulings, used abroad to provide cover for corrupt public figures, are being brought in through the back door.

Today it is a cheating sports star hiding behind anonymity. Tomorrow it could be a cheating politician.

It is vital for democracy we know the names of those who go to court to have newspapers silenced.

Once a nation starts down the road to secret justice, there is no telling where it will end."

• Inside the Sun today has a news story and a "rogues gallery of protected cheats".