to ask if this is allowed? well legal really.

[watermargin]

one of my male friends is in a women's weekly magazine after his ex wife has sent in her story! It includes pictures of him with her and the children and names him too.

he works in education so it could be disastrous for him! Can the magazine just do this?

I would think so. They do it to celebrities all the time, why not your friend?

Perhaps his permission was asked for?

no

I would have thought the magazine would have needed his permission to print his name and pictures. Dreadful.

he definitely didn't give permission!

If you read it carefully, is anything said that is untrue?

A woman did this in my local paper once. The ExH (whom I know) went potty, and complained. It was a nasty article about how the mother was bringing up a 'devil child' and hey, not her fault if the kid truanted school.

Apparently all this exploitation was perfectly legal, and the Press Complaints Commission advised that the paper was within its rights as the mother had given permission for the child to be featured. i.e. only one parent has to give permission, and a child can be featured - it doesn't matter if the other parent wants to refuse. (Nothing to do with RPs/NRPs btw - just 'parental consent' being needed and this can come from one parent only).

The fact the mother needed real help, not exploiting like this, passes the PCC by. It also presumably means that bitter Exes can do some real damage?

I guess injunctions are obtainable for those with the money.

How would it be disastrous for his job? I realise you might not want to be specific but can you give us a clue?

Does it say anything libellous about him or is there a court order banning identification of the children?

Does it say anything about him at all other than he's her ex-husband and the children's dad?

If it's just that he doesn't want it in there I don't think there's anything he can do and I don't think there should.

Lots of men got injunctions to stop ex-girlfriends telling their stories simply because they had the money. Many of them are still in place. In many cases it is an abuse of power. It's too easy to say these stories shouldn't be printed because people just want to gossip. Sometimes they shouldn't, but sometimes they definitely should.

Fred Goodwin was able to get an injunction banning talk of his affair with a senior RBS employee which may have been relevant to the fuck-up at the bank. It's still in place for her.

There's also shocker where someone involved in football got an injunction gagging the husband of the woman he was shagging on the spurious grounds that it might drive his own wife to suicide.

And the actor who got his co-star dropped from the show after he'd finished shagging her on the grounds that his teenage children might be teased at school.

I'd have thought her right to expose dodgy employment practices at a major TV company would have over-ridden that.

I have no idea. I read crappy magazines you do often get "they declined to comment" stuff, and "I've got nothing to say", so I'm assuming they are allowed to run a story whether you want them to or not.

your friend should complain to the mag and get a retraction or something. If what is said is untrue.

I don't know where he'd stand if what was said is actually all true, he just doesn't like it.

I think the only thing he could do is sue for libel if there is anything libellous printed>but the cost of doing this would be astronomical so in a nutshell -nothing he can do

I was pretty revolted when I learned that the PCC think it's ok for a parent to exploit their own child as long as that same parent gives permission for themselves to do it.

It's only illegal if they tell falsehoods about him, then it would be libel-slander.

What about considering a "contempt of court" angle? OP, are the two in court at the moment, which could mean biased information/in the public domain, affecting the outcome of a court's decision.

what is the nature of the story?
All pegs on that

That does sound awful. I don't read magazines like that, they are generally knocking about at work though. Some of the stores are really horrid and intrusive.

It's about stuff he supposedly did when married, I don't know the ins and outs but the main gist is that he married this woman, who already had a son, now he won't pay child maintenance which is fair enough (not his child) but the way it's portrayed it's like he's an evil heartless bastard and he isn't. He works in a secondary comp and there is stuff about their sex life ...

Is the story that was published already in the public domain?

Has there been any court ruling with regard to the accusations the ex wife is making?

If not then the only other justification would be a 'public interest' one.

Even if it's true and isn't libellous, if it contains details of their sex life published without his consent it would probably count as an invasion of his privacy, he would be able to argue that the ex published the story with malicious intent and that it wasn't in the public interest. I would imagine he could go down the no-win, no-fee route.

There's a quote that I thought of when reading this

Live in such a way that if anyone should speak badly of you, no one would believe it

You believe this guy has been treated badly, and hopefully so will most people. If they judge him from what they read in articles from a bitter and twisted ex and a trashy magazine, then their opinions probably aren't worth much anyway.

People who buy those magazines enjoy reading the salacious tittle tattle they peddle just like the tabloids regurgitate sexual news stories for public titilation.

It doesnt matter whether he's a teacher or a dustman; the impact could be just the same.

If it were 'illegal' then the magazines and the tabloids would have gone out of business years ago.

some years ago i was slated in several newspapers and magazines,i complained to the pcc. the only thing they did wrong was saying the bits that wernt true and i could prove wernt true.
there were several things that wernt true but i couldnt prove they wernt.

what it boiled down to was if the things that werent true hadnt been published then it wouldnt have been worth printing it would have been a none story, but as it was my word against someone elses and a reasonable person would have concidered that this person was in a unique possition by being able to know things about me and had no reason to doubt there word then the mag did nothing wrong.

i did however recive compensation for the falsehoods and a retraction but they only apoligised for the stuff i could prove was false.

in essance if its true they can print it unless you obtain an injunction preventing them from doing so,if there wernt able to just print it then why would there be the option of obtaining the injunction as it wouldnt be needed.and those types of publications wouldnt exist.

that aside, im not really clear on how not paying maintainance for a child thats not yours (despite it being something that a court can order you to do if the child has been a child of the family) could cause a problem for a teacher surely people would understand and not make it an issue.
as to the him being a git stuff and the sex stuff who ever said teachers have to be perfect arnt they just human beings like the rest of us,inless we are really talking about her claiming he has commited actual crimes

Use of personal photographs without permission is in theory covered by the Data Protection Act, but it's a bit feeble.

The Human Rights Act covers people's right to a personal life (see the Max Moseley case) but again, I wouldn't rate your friend's chances of success.

There might be a libel case in there, but again libel cases cost a lot of money unless you find a lawyer who will take you on for a no win no fee arrangement, but it's unlikely.

Crap, isn't it?

Jesus, what a cow!

Basically if you can prove lies have been written you can sue for defamation. Even if you do go down the legal route, it costs a bloody fortune.

If what was said is true then your stuffed basically.