Zelo Street regulars will recall last April’s attempts by several newspapers, but most notably the Sun on Sunday, to breach an injunction preventing them from revealing the identity of a “celebrity father” who had taken part in a threesome. The person concerned was wrongly labelled a “love cheat”, despite his partner having been aware of the threesome and having agreed to the “celebrity father” taking part in it.
The injunction was also used - by Piers Morgan, no less - as a device to attack press regulation reform campaigner Evan Harris on Good Morning Britain, a campaign which turned out not necessarily to his advantage. Harris pointed out that the press’ reasoning for not going after John Whittingdale over his relationship with a known sex worker - that he was doing nothing wrong - applied equally to the “celebrity father”.
Thus Morgan was reduced to ranting and co-host Susanna Reid was forced to intervene to spare his blushes. But on ploughed the Murdoch goons, determined to expose the celebrity and his partner. Sadly, despite all their efforts, and those of their hangers-on, they failed, and have now ended up not only having to pay their own lawyers’ bills, but also pay damages and some of the celebrity’s costs. Ouch!
As the Guardian has reported - note, once again, that most of the press decline to give their readers this information - “The publishers of the Sun on Sunday have agreed in the high court to pay an undisclosed sum of damages and costs to a celebrity who fought to keep his name out of a tabloid ‘kiss’n’tell’ following a three-way sexual encounter … The agreement ends months of litigation over attempts by the celebrity, known only as PJS, to block News Group Newspapers (NGN) from revealing his identity”.
There was more: “As part of the agreement, NGN has agreed to remove some articles and not to use, disclose or publish certain information, including details that might lead to the identification of PJS as the claimant in the case, including identifying his partner or three others”. This restrictive move may also affect one of the Sun’s fetchers and carriers.
The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog were in the vanguard of trying to bust the injunction by rendering it meaningless. Staines’ defence was that he was typing the articles in Ireland, which were made available on servers located outside the UK. But when an Irish Times article on the dispute referred only to him as a “well-known blogger”, and was then pulled, there was clearly a problem.
Carter Ruck, who acted for PJS, instructed Johnsons, a law firm with offices in Dublin, to pursue the case. And thus far Staines, who is normally not backwards in coming forwards to tell anyone who will listen how he has seen off another legal intervention, has remained silent on the subject. Zelo Street has been informed this week that all may not be well chez The Great Guido. The question has to be asked - has he had to pay up too?
If so, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving individual. Another fine mess, once again.
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