Imogen Thomas Super-Injunction: Everyone In Jail By Tea Time
WHAT front-page news on the alleged Premier League footballer who took out an alleged super-injunction to prevent media interest in his alleged affair with Imogen Thomas?
Well, having obtained a High Court order asking Twitter to reveal details of users who had revealed his identity (but is it him?), the papers report:
Sunday Times (front page): “D’oh! Radio 4 unmasks player”
However, the footballer’s move prompted an avalanche of online publicity, with thousands of Twitter users repeating his name.
The trend was reinforced yesterday when Today, BBC Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme, appeared accidentally to identify the footballer when a guest blurted out his first name during an interview.
While the BBC sought to play down the affair, the comments were picked up and broadcast all over the internet — including in tweets by at least two of the corporation’s own journalists.
After the blunder, a highprofile BBC correspondent wrote on Twitter that the guest had “got just one syllable into breaking the footballer super-injunction”.
BBC staff were among those to name and refer to the footballer in other tweets on Friday and yesterday.
One senior broadcast journalist at the BBC named a footballer in three messages and dropped several hints about CTB’s identity, as well as making a sarcastic reference to the player as a “family man”.
Daily Mail (front page): “TV STAR FIRST TO FACE JAIL OVER TWEETS”.
Is this a form of rape, Ken Clarke – to have the law place a hand over your mouth to prevent you from moving and speaking freely? Is it justice to have the alleged truth suppressed by the rich?
A journalist on one of Britain’s most respected newspapers – who also appears on a widely-viewed BBC programme – could face a jail sentence after naming on Twitter a Premier League footballer who had taken out a privacy injunction.
The hacks name is not repeated in print because in doing so readers might want to seek him out on Twitter and thereby learn the name of the person who, allegedly, is alleged to have taken out an alleged super-injunction to prevent his alleged mistress, one Imogen Thomas, talking of their alleged affair.
The England footballer, known only by his court codename of TSE, instructed lawyers to ask the judge to pass the case on to the Attorney General’s office. And he agreed.
Hold on a moment. TSE? That’s not the chap known as CTB in legal documents relating to Thomas. It’s another footballer?
Any more facts?
Last night the newspaper for whom the author of the messages is believed to write, said they did not think that the case related to them. But when asked whether they had been contacted by Schillings about the messages, the newspaper declined to comment.
Anyone who has ever campaigned for restrictions on tabloid tactics should blush. We need a free press. Without one, we get a shiny version of Pravda. And if you want to be exposed, try not shagging a woman who makes a living exposing herself…
Posted: 22nd, May 2011 | In: Reviews Comments (12) | TrackBack | Permalink
