Written evidence submitted by Private
Eye
PRESS STANDARDS
PRIVACY AND
LIBEL
Following my appearance to give evidence before
the Committee on 5 May I am writing, as anticipated during
the course of my evidence, to give some further information to
the Committee.
Firstly, I enclose a copy of the letter of 29 April
2009 that Private Eye received from Schillings, solicitors,
on behalf of its client, Richard Grainger.[15]
Mr Grainger was formerly Chief Executive of NHS Connecting
for Health, the Department of health Agency responsible for
delivering the National Programme for IT to the NHS which has
been the subject of very extensive criticism over its huge levels
of spending and its very modest achievements to date.
Secondly, I have looked at what happened in
40 cases since the beginning of 2000 involving libel claims
made against Private Eye. For the avoidance of doubt the
making of these claims did not necessarily lead to court action
being started, as some were settled without any need to institute
court action and others were not pursued. One action went to trial—the
Condliffe action which was mentioned during my evidence—and
resulted in victory for Private Eye when the action was
abandoned after some six weeks of trial. One action went to trial
and resulted in a hung jury. One action was settled on the eve
of trial with a substantial payment of costs in the Eye's favour,
in other words a victory for the Eye. Of the remainder,
26 claims were not pursued and 11 resulted in agreed
settlement.
Thirdly, since the beginning of 2008 Private
Eye has begun to receive a number of privacy injunctions granted
at hearings of which it had no prior notice and designed to prevent
the media generally from publishing allegations about individuals,
usually well-known celebrities. In these instances, Private
Eye has been sent copies of the court order, although it was
not a defendant in the proceedings (orders are sometimes made
against "persons unknown").
As I mentioned in my evidence, Private Eye
is currently involved in contested proceedings for an interim
injunction to prevent publication of information said to be confidential/private.
Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an injunction in January 2009;
the outcome of the appeal to the Court of Appeal is currently
awaited. There are reporting restrictions in place from the court
in respect of those proceedings.
In addition, but in contrast to the above type
of privacy injunction, Private Eye has for many years now
been in regular receipt of injunctions granted by the Family Division
of the High Court which are designed to preserve the anonymity
of children who for one reason or another have become of interest
to the media. Private Eye has never taken issue with this
type of injunction.
There is no doubt, however, that the increasing
use of the former type of privacy injunction is of great concern.
Court orders commonly prevent publication not only of the "private
information", but also the name of the person who has obtained
the injunction. In some cases, the order prohibits any disclosure
of the fact that proceedings have been brought or an injunction
granted. Private Eye receives copies of some (but not,
I believe, all) of the orders made by the court.
On this subject, in my evidence to the committee,
I may have suggested inadvertently that Private Eye receives
a privacy injunction of the former type about once every two weeks.
This is not the case. What I meant to say was that this is my
understanding of the approximate rate at which this type of injunction
is being granted by the Courts. I understand that I will have
the opportunity to correct my evidence and I will do so in due
course.
May 2009
15 Ev not printed Back
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