How woud you feel if every detail of your personal life was publicised?

[funnyspelling]

I'm not defending ANYONE, far from it, however, how does "being in the
public eye" make a difference?

If everything you said or did was splashed all over mn for example, how would you feel?

How does the Scottish Herald know I'm in England? Had a look at their site and the headline is there but when I click I get nothing. Does my ISP carry the flag of St George or something?

I have been trying to see the page too edam but I think their server has crashed as the page just keeps loading for ages.

I am sure brian fliggs (if that indeed is who we are on about, he plays for wednesday reunited) is totally effed off with the whole thing and his mrs must be too.

Imogen Thomas, I am sure is not such an innocent in all this and bagging a high profile man was something she had on her agenda. the sun courting her must have been very attractive.

I don't give a fig about these people & their private lives. Makes me so depressed that anybody does :(.

bidbidi, as Giddy says, it's not merely about the sex lives of celebrities. It's about multi-national corporations trying to hide the fact they have poisoned people by dumping toxic waste/apparently by painting water containers on ships with toxic paints, if I've understood one of the cases correctly. It's about judges trying to suppress reporting of parliament - something that goes to the very heart of our constitution. The injunctions allow companies to hide wrong-doing from the law, from the regulators and from the public. That's why they are so dangerous and so objectionable.

Is there a shred of evidence that SuperInjunctions have been used inappropriately, and for anything but protecting people from media gossip about legal private behaviour? I suspect the tabloid press are just pursuing an agenda of hyping up the supposed problems with SIs because they are angry about the loss of their cashcow.

It looks to me like that matter was resolved 18 months ago.
That the injunction was granted by a vacation duty judge, and even plaintiff's law firm involved decided that it wouldn't be upheld on appeal.
Just because one judge misinterpreted the remit of the law, doesn't mean that the law itself is bad.

Give more examples where gagging orders have been abused?

I think when famous people court publicity and then have negative details of their life publicised, they can't really complain. However, where people don't court publicity, then their private life should be private. And there are famous people who don't court publicity that you never read anything about.

I think that the press has discussed this for a long time.

Footballer shagging around, not in the public interest, he has a right to privacy.
Politician shagging a model who's also sleeping with a KGB operative (Christine Keeler, Profumo, etc), definitely in the public interest and should be published.

Many famous actors don't court publicity. They live relatively private lives. Huge film hit and then go back to their life, children etc.
Alternatively people like the Beckhams and Katie Price, court the media to extremes, so therefore can not later complain about lack of privacy. Thats just not on.

I agree with what TheSecondComing said. She clearly wanted to make money out of it. That's worse than being a prostitute as it's underhand.

He was a fool for going with an attention seeker.

I feel sorry for the wife, it's bad enough finding he's has had an affair without it being plastered all over the internet and press.

bidi, we happen to know about three cases involving corporate wrongdoing (Goodwin as well as the other two mentioned, where the man responsible for the biggest bank collapse in UK history was hiding serious allegations from the regulator). We don't know how many others there may have been already, or how many there might be in the future if this affront to the rule of law and to our constitution is allowed to continue. It's not one stupid judge (and even if there was just one, that needs to be sorted out). Certainly there have been other cases, in the family courts, where gagging orders people who feel they have been victims of a miscarriage of justice have been ordered not to speak to their MPs - such gagging orders are an outrageous affront to both the citizen and to parliament.

Many people are in the public eye and many of them retain their privacy because they're either not acting like total dickwads and courting it, or they're keeping very quiet about it.

You'd be surprised how many managers and schlebs inform the 'evil media' of where they'll be and when, or what they're doing and who they're doing, to remain on the radar.... then whine when they're snapped falling out of a club whilst snogging a mystery person other than their spouse. Meh.

For real invasion of privacy, all people should be protected, but mostly the people who complain the loudest are the ones who're being incredibly blasé and courting interest, either from a pap, or from someone like me who's just trying to have a nice night out without some twallop acting like a bafoon.

It wouldn't matter if Fred Goodwin had been shagging around (except to Mrs Goodwin and the children and as further evidence that the man is an untrustworthy fool) had he not chosen a colleague, going against company policy, and presumably, as far as we can tell, a colleague who had some bearing on the decision-making that led up to the collapse of RBI. He put himself in a position where his sex life was relevant to his conduct at the bank and was an issue that should be brought to the attention of the regulator. His super-injunction was not an attempt to protect his private life, it was an attempt to avoid the quite proper attentions of the regulator. He tried to use the law to evade the law. And a judge was quite happy to let him do it. It's only John Hemmings MP who has allowed FG to be held to account, quite properly using parliamentary privilege.

Seems there is now a battle going on between judges, who are outraged that the public is defying their attempts to control information, and parliament.

I agree with Helena Kennedy that this (eg outing Ryan Giggs) is all about money. The media are being huge hypocrites imo - they want to be able to report on footballers' private lives because they want to sell newspapers. End of. Nothing to do with freedom of speech. And they don't care who suffers as a result. All this jumping up and down is because they feed off these people like leeches.

Why are we so fixated on extra-marital affairs? When you think of all the horrible things that can go on within a marriage (mental cruelty, bullying, undermining, betrayals in other ways) - shouldn't the media be allowed to put up CCTV cameras in the homes of the rich and famous to catch them being mean to their families or kicking the dog?

But there are important issues re freedom of speech and an individual's right to privacy. We've just got to separate them out. Someone who does something illegal or an elected politician might be fair game; someone who happens to be in the public sphere because of the job they do - how do we have a right to know who he sleeps with?? Of course we can't have gagging orders on issues that really are in the public's interest to know (the Trafigura thing for example). And no, it's not fair that these rich men are gagging their mistresses, but somehow my heart doesn't bleed for the sort of person who sleeps with a married man and then shouts about it for money. However, I can see that even these women deserve justice.

Who is best placed to decide what is in the public interest? Not the media, surely. And you can't pass a new law every time something like this comes up. So who does that leave? The courts, surely.

It can't be beyond the powers of parliament to debate and pass a law that makes the current situation fairer, that maybe gives some guidelines to the courts and allows the judge some discretion without getting us into a one-size-fits-all situation. Elected politicians are sometimes the very worst people to decide on these issues because they almost always have another agenda, ie to remain in power, which means to remain popular, which means to remain popular with the media, which means to allow the media the freedom to wreck the lives of the partners and children of people who have affairs in the name of 'free speech'.

John Hemmings is beneath contempt imo - what on earth is it to do with him? Blantant publicity-seeking for himself - and an abuse of his position. I really hope he has an affair one day and is made to suffer. Maybe we should spring a Mumsnet honey trap for him. On the other hand ... I've just seen him on TV.

John Prescott is very eloquent on this (Channel 4 News): Why do we need to know every time someone in public life has sex??? Is it that the rest of us aren't getting any? (JP didn't say that).

I believe in free speech. I think people should be allowed to speak the truth. If the allegations are untrue there is an unfit for purpose libel law. If it is true - well you are in the public eye. Shit happens. Ryan Giggs gets paid mega bucks for entertaining people (football) you have to man up and take it on the chin. You're in the game. There are many players who are probably having affairs and no one cares because they stay out of the spotlight and take home less money as a result.

Is playing excellent football putting yourself up for grabs? If it's all about money, then every millionaire should have his affairs publicised. What's the cutoff point? Over £500 000 a year and your private life belongs to the media? What has money got to do with freedom of speech?

We need to know about criminals and conmen. Not about unfaithful footballers - no matter how much money they earn.

There is no cut off because the only currency that masters is that of media exposure.

Why are celebrities - and that includes footballers- so important that they should be able to buy 'privacy' when Joe public eg the teacher working as a prostitute by night, have to just suck it up? Why are rich men so precious that they need to buy protection?

Also what about the speech of others? The woman sacked then gagged after having an affair with some big cheese? The rights of the woman in this? What about the rights of Goodwin's RBS shareholders to know about the context of his decision making before the bank made massive losses?

How the hell can you make a law and not curtail free speech? The US has it written into it's constitution and good for them.

Sorry 'matters' the papers don't care about millionnaires, they care about the people who lift sales - such as Ruan Giggs OBE.

Sorry prostitute/ suck it up is an unfortunate juxtaposition - that'll teach me not to preview

I have no time for the whole "look x has cellulite" "x full of grief at z funeral" type stories but I strongly believe wealth should not be able to be used to buy privacy, you want to be famous/wealthy/powerful and bask in the glory of public esteem then you ALSO have to be able to take the consequences if you behave in a way the public disapproves of.

tbh with regard to the topical story I dont think most of us give a damn he was having an affair but the hiding behind a judge crap

Tactically sometimes taking out these injunctions isn't always the best things to do.

The issue of having to balance people's rights to a private life and the right to express views and the pubilc interest is what I think the courts have to do in balancing those bits of the HRA. Sometimes they get it wrong. The poor can get superinjunctions too but they might have to represent themselves to do it and usually no one is remotely interested in them so they don't need them.

If you decide to break your marriage vows you know the risks and even if you'd rather lawyers getting the injunction for you rather than your soon to be ex wife will get much of your money it's never been easy to have a 100% tightly sealed secret. There will always be gossips around and it's a bit of a high risk strategy to go for these injunctions. There has always been a gossip in every village.