John Terry's been "nobbing" Wayne Bridge's girlfriend as one of the edits on Wikipedia puts it. Terry got a superinjunction forbidding publication of this story - and of the fact that there was an injunction. This all fell apart on Friday. The case raises some interesting issues:

• Despite the superinjunction, you could find out about the story on Twitter and Google easily enough - both raised the profile of Terry's affair via the trends list in Twitter's case and the Twitter search box in Google's.
• No one seemed to understand the difference between an injunction and a superinjunction - the former banned reporting of JT's conduct, the latter banned revealing there was an injunction. They weren't necessarily both overturned, but there was a widespread assumption you could say what you liked about Terry once the superinjunction was overturned. This wasn't necessarily the case ...
• The Mail and Telegraph seemed to flout the terms of the superinjunction - as did the Press Gazette which decided if wasn't bound as it hadn't seen a copy. This seemed risky behaviour legally - which makes me wonder if the papers were looking for a weak case to try to discredit superinjunctions.
• This superinjunction should never have been granted. What was the original judge thinking?

Google revealed the story via its Twitter search box

Google and Twitter ignored the superinjunction

The superinjunction was overturned at about 1pm or 2pm on Friday. Needless to say, the papers had a field day today (Saturday).

But if you wanted to find out the story on Friday, it was relatively simple to do so. I typed John Terry's name into Google on Friday at about 11.15am - long before the injunction was lifted - and saw the screenshot, above.

Yes, the Google's twitter search box was happily showing people tweeting about John Terry and Wayne Bridge (and there were tweets showing giving full details of the affair). Later that day, they removed the twitter search results - whether this was algorithmic or for legal reasons, I don't know. But type both those names into Google or Twitter search, and it was easy to find the full story.

And by Friday lunchtime, both John Terry and Wayne Bridge were trending topics on Twitter, raising the profile of the issue. If you clicked on either to see what was being tweeted, you'd have found out about the affair instantly.

Shortly after, a judge ruled there were no grounds for the injunction, super or otherwise.

Guardian links to Twitter search for John Terry

As an aside, I noticed that the Guardian, in its coverage of the superinjunction, even included a link in one of its pieces to a Twitter search on John Terry.

They've removed it now (well, I can't find it anyway and probably for the best. You should either have the balls to run the full story or not. I don't think publishing a link to a twitter search is a reasonable half way house.)

Confusion still reigned

Once news that the super injunction had been lifted, no one knew (or perhaps cared) where they legally stood on Friday afternoon (as I've pointed out before about reporting restrictions).

It was reported that the superinjunction was lifted - but not whether there was a separate injunction relating to the facts of the case (ie could you report that JT had obtained an injunction, but not say why?).

Despite this, everyone went ahead and shouted about it all over the internet. If there was a separate injunction, it was finished.

You can see the confusion in the comments on this Guardian story from yesterday afternoon

Seastorm: I've no interest in gossiping about EBJT, but I am a little confused....is the paper concerned now allowed to go ahead and publish the allegations?

Busfield (replying to seastorm): The judgement means that we can now report that there was an injunction. The judge then says that the newspaper concerned will have to make its own assessment of the risks involved in publishing whatever the allegations may be, which will involve considerations of the laws relating to privacy and defamation.

Gooner UK (replying to seastorm): Nope, the removal of the superinjunction means that newspapers are allowed to publish the fact that an injunction is in place, and name the parties involved, but they are still not allowed to publish the subject matter itself.

The injunction still stands, it's just that we now know an injunction is in place. A superinjunction is so damaging because it means we (the public) are deliberately kept in the dark as to the very existence of an injunction.

And bear in mind that an injunction is in theory an act of last resort anyway. A superinjunction adds another level to that, which can be very dangerous in terms of press freedom.

Busfield (replying to Gooner UK): my understanding, and I am not a lawyer but I have spent much of the day talking to one, is that both the super and the injunction have gone. It is up to the paper concerned to decide whether it can publish its story without breaking the laws of defamation and relating to privacy.

The background: two papers ignore the injunction

It's also interesting that two newspapers decide to ignore, or sail very close to the wind with regards to, the superinjunction - ie they ran stories that appeared to be in breach of it.

Mail reports injunction's existence

As the Press Gazette reported yesterday morning (ie before the superinjunction was lifted):

A new “super-injunction” has been used by a Premier League footballer to stop national newspapers reporting his alleged marital infidelity.

The Daily Mail identifies the man only as a married England international.

The Daily Mail today reports, in apparent defiance of the order: "So draconian is Mr Justice Tugendhat’s order that even its existence is supposed to be a secret."

(It's interesting that the Press Gazette felt able to run the story about the existence of the superinjnction stating "Press Gazette has not been served with the injunction." - I would have thought that this was also sailing close to the wind. It knew there was a super injunction, and I'm surprised its lawyers didn't make an attempt to find out the full details.)

The Mail's piece had a couple of nods and winks to Terry's role:

A married England international footballer was granted a sweeping injunction to prevent publication of his affair with the girlfriend of a team-mate ... It could be anyone from the captain of the top team in the land ..."

What, like the captain of England, you mean?

As does the Telegraph

On top of this, the Telegraph had run a piece, too, according to the Guardian:

Yesterday The Daily Telegraph technically breached the "super" part of the superinjunction by reporting that the courts were hiding the identity of a footballer and allegations about his private life. (This piece appeared in print but is no longer online).

Maybe since the Trafigura injunction, newspapers have been looking for a way to kill off superinjunctions. If they wanted a weak super injunction to pick on as a way to discredit them, this seemed a prime example.

Whatever their reasons, nothing seems likely to happen to the Mail and the Telegraph for breaching or nearly breaching this one - unlike in the Trafigura case, it seems unlikely John Terry is going to successfully sue anyone over this issue.

Conclusion

The Mail sums it up well:

In a scathing ruling, the judge made it clear he suspected Terry was more afraid of losing the commercial deals than anything else.

He said the footballer appeared to have brought his High Court action in a desperate move to protect his earnings - rather than the woman with whom he had been conducting his affair.

(And given this, it's hard to see how the superinjunction was ever granted.)

There are legitimate reasons for injunctions and even superinjunctions.

But judges need to think very carefully before granting them. And the British courts and the right to privacy should not be used to protect the commercial interests of a man "crowned father of the year" who at the same time had cheated on his wife with his team mate's partner (and that's only half the story, according to the internet).

Having failed to stop the Guardian reporting an MP asking a question about Trafigura and the injunction concerning the Minton report, Carter Ruck is making a second attempt to gag Parliament. The firm has written a 3-page letter to the speaker of the House of Commons - in the middle of which are these two paragraphs (my emphasis):

Until that resolution [of the matter referred to in the injunction], it is not appropriate to comment on the Order [the injunction], other than to make it clear that we and our clients are in no doubt that it was entirely appropriate for us to seek the injunctive relief in question ...

Clearly the question of whether this matter is sub judice is entirely a matter for your [the speaker's] discretion, although we would observe that we believe the proceedings to have been and to remain "Active" within the definition of House Resolution CJ (2001-02) 194-195 of 15 November 2001 in that arrangements have been made for the hearing of an application before the Court.

The resolution being referred to says this (my emphasis):

Matters sub judice

Resolution of 15th November 2001

Resolved, That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, and to the right of the House to legislate on any matter or to discuss any delegated legislation, the House in all its proceedings (including proceedings of committees of the House) shall apply the following rules on matters sub judice:

(1) Cases in which proceedings are active in United Kingdom courts shall not be referred to in any motion, debate or question.

(b) (i) Civil proceedings are active when arrangements for the hearing, such as setting down a case for trial, have been made, until the proceedings are ended by judgment or discontinuance.

So although they don't spell it out in their letter, they have basically written to the speaker to suggest that this matter is sub judice and should not therefore be discussed in Parliament.

In the same letter, Carter Ruck also say this:

... there has never been any question of Trafigura applying for an injunction that had as its purpose the prevention of publication of any matter arising in Parliament.

No. But they have written a letter suggesting MPs don't discuss the matter in hand - so there wouldn't be any need for an injunction preventing reporting them, as it wouldn't have been discussed.

Fortunately, the resolution says that it is subject to the discretion of the Chair.

Let's hope the speaker uses his discretion wisely.

Update 2: The Carter Ruck sidewiki now has 21 yeses. And the sidewiki on the Trafigura site has 11.

Update The Carter Ruck sidewiki now has 12 yeses. And there is a sidewiki on the Trafigura site now (with only one yes - hint, hint) that says:

Guardian Controversy

On Tuesday 13 October, 2009, Trafigura was caught up in a controversial gagging order against The Guardian newspaper in the UK in relation to a parliamentary question that was due to be asked by Paul Farrelly about the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste on the Ivory Coast.

The issue became something of a cause celebre on social networks including Twitter and Facebook, and is considered to be an exemplar of what has come to be know as the Streisand Effect - ie the act of attempting to surpress information leads to its widespread distribution.

(Thanks to Jo Wadsworth for the tipoff).

Original post I won't rehearse the Trafigura injunction story - google it if you haven't heard about it. But I thought that google's sidewiki could provide some fun - I could go and add comments to the home page of both the Carter Ruck website and the Trafigura site.

Sidewiki and Carter Ruck

Somewhere had got there first (you'll need the google toolbar to see the sidewiki) with Carter Ruck. Josh Dayson has written:

R.I.P Carter-Ruck In loving memory of the people that gagged the Guardian reporting on the British parliament. Was brought down by Twitter on the 13th October 2009.

After I tweeted a link to it, it went up to 8 'yeses' so I guess it'll stay for a while.

Sidewiki and Trafigura

No one had written anything on the Trafigura site, so I quickly wrote a sidewiki that described the background to the injunction and linked to:

• the Guardian's Trafigura pages,
• the Spectator's original, deliberate breach of the injunction,
• the OJB's excellent roundup of today's online coverage of the injunction, and
• the Minton report on wikileaks.

And then I completely chickened out and deleted it.

I guess this is what their lawyers want - even on a day when Trafigura ostensibly lost, the UK libel laws worry me too much to (a) leave the sidewiki there or (b) link to the Minton report from this blog.

As I've pointed out  before, reporting restrictions and bloggers don't really mix. I don't have any way to find out what the other injunctions around this case are (the BBC says that "the injunction on reporting the contents of the Minton report remains in place.")

Is it OK to mention the Minton report? Clearly. Is it OK to describe what's in it? It would seem not. Can I link to it? I guess not - but who knows? I have no way to see the injunction.

And while everyone jumps up and down about how Twitter beat Carter Ruck, the ability for these injunctions to be put in place remains. There are clearly others affecting other people or companies that we don't know about. And there are clearly further injunctions about Trafigura we don't know about.

Now, who's got nothing to lose and fancies writing a sidewiki?