Footballer seeks search order on journalists

A UK footballer has asked the UK High Court for an order to search e-mails and text messages of journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers in an unprecedented effort to see whether they breached the terms of a so-called super-injunction concerning an alleged affair with a reality TV star.

The application, which the court has not yet ruled on, is likely to send a chill through media organizations at a time of intense debate over privacy law and the efficacy of super-injunctions. Last week, a Twitter user named several celebrities who have reportedly taken out super-injunctions. Earlier this month, a judge in the Court of Protection issued an injunction that for the first time explicitly banned publication of information on Twitter or Facebook. Hugh Tomlinson QC, acting for the footballer who allegedly had an affair with Imogen Thomas, told the High Court that his disclosure application followed comments made by Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie on the BBC’s Today program. The former Sun editor told the programme he was flooded by e-mails from readers asking who had secured injunctions against the newspaper. “Sometimes I give [the names], sometimes I don't,” MacKenzie added. “He is there telling the world that he ... breaks court orders whenever he feels like it,” Tomlinson told Mr Justice Eady.