Not-so-super injunctions

The press bites back on privacy cases. The so-called superinjunction Chelsea football star John Terry's lawyers, Schillings, obtained to try to protect his sponsorship image from the reality of his private life has been breached.

Superinjunctions were devised to prevent the media from even mentioning that an injunction had been imposed on a story about to be published in the press. Trafigura tried this tactic through their lawyers Carter Ruck with the Guardian to suppress a story about toxic waste dumping in the Ivory Coast, which was only foiled by Paul Farrelly MP raising a question in the House of Commons knowing he would be free from prosecution.

These are two cases where the surperinjunction legal tactic has fallen apart. But who's to say if there are unexploded cases where stories continue to be suppressed using this 'privacy by the back door' approach? No doubt, the UK press itself will be investigating just such a scenario even now.