Sun hits out over legal gag on top banker's affair

A senior executive at a British bank bailed out by the taxpayer has gagged the Sun from revealing an affair with a colleague, the paper reports today.

High Court judge Mr Justice Richard Henriques made the privacy ruling in what the Sun says is "another blow to free speech in the UK".

The paper claims: "The married banker, paid a substantial six figure sum, began the illicit affair before the credit crunch erupted and plunged the country into recession. He was present when the Government was forced to spend almost £1trillion to prop up the banks. Ministers are axing thousands of civil servants to pay for bankers' mistakes and more than 50,000 workers in the sector have lost their job in the past two years."

It quotes a series of freedom of speech campaigners and media experts "slamming the legal gag". They include:

Niri Shan, head of media law at Taylor Wessing, who says: "The law has gone too far when it comes to protecting private lives. They need to redress the balance between free speech and the individual's right to privacy."

Padraig Reidy, of the Index on Censorship: "There is a tendency among English judges to rule against freedom of the press. In other countries, people have a right to publish and, if they are wrong, they can be pursued in the libel courts.The courts here are used to stop stories which are in the public interest coming out."

And celebrity PR Max Clifford tells the Sun: "Many people, many of whom have suffered because of the greed and mistakes of bankers, cannot afford protection from the law. The fact that this person has been able to because he is rich is totally wrong."

• The Sun has previously attacked as "disgraceful" a ruling which stopped the media naming a cheating sportsman.
  

Britain could get first privacy law via Parliament

Britain could get its first privacy law through Parliament to stop judges creating one via the courts, the Daily Telegraph reports today.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Lord McNally, a Liberal Democrat minister in the Ministry of Justice, suggests that the right to privacy could be enshrined in law after a number of celebrities and sports stars were awarded “super-injunctions” to gag the press.
Lord McNally said: “There has been a general consensus that a new piece of legislation that clarifies, consolidates and removes some of the more dangerous aspects of the way case law has grown up is something that is desirable.”
He also told the Telegraph: “There was a danger that we were getting towards having privacy law by judicial decision. If we are going to have a privacy law it should be openly debated and freely decided by Parliament."
Lord McNally said super-injunctions were “something that has grown up by stealth, rather than by considered desire of Parliament and therefore they will be in the sights when they look at the reform of the law”.

• The Telegraph is cautious on a privacy law, noting: "Campaigners for freedom of speech will fear that any new privacy law could frustrate investigations by journalists that are clearly in the public interest, such as the Daily Telegraph’s inquiry last year into MPs’ expenses."
• The Daily Mail today says the Premier League footballer who took out a super-injunction on Friday to gag a Sunday tabloid from writing about his private life is an England player.