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Right to know upheld by U.K. Justice

by Whaleoil on January 30, 2010

In a case more like the TV show Footballer’s Wives:

England captain John Terry was publicly disgraced last night for cheating on his wife with a team-mate’s girlfriend after losing a court battle to keep it secret.

The £170,000-a-week footballer had an affair with French underwear model Vanessa Perroncel – his wife’s best friend and the partner of fellow England defender Wayne Bridge.

He tried to keep everything on the down-low and tried to use a judge to do it under the law.

Within minutes of the story breaking, the internet was awash with angry calls for Terry to be stripped of the captaincy.

The Chelsea star had initially used human rights laws to obtain a gagging order against the press, claiming his right to a ‘private and family life’.

But the judge who threw out the order said he thought Terry was more concerned about the threat to his lucrative sponsorship deals. Even the existence of the so-called ‘super-injunction’ was supposed to be a secret. But in a landmark ruling for press freedom, Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that the public had a right to know.

He told the High Court that people should have the right to criticise ‘socially harmful’ behaviour because freedom of speech is as important as the right to privacy.

Oh that our Judges and MPs believed in freedom of speech like Justice Tugendhat. We have a duty as citizens to criticise, just as the Justice says, socially harmful behaviour.

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  • jabba

    Wayne Carey got his arse and career destroyed when he shagged his vice captains wife in a closet .. i can't wait to see what happens to terry

  • Inventory2

    That's Chelski stuffed for the season then. The atmosphere in The Mincers' dressing room will be absolutely shite. Terry should know that you never screw around with a team-mate's wife – unless it's absolutely necessary!

  • jabba

    i don't really rate Terry as a defender of real note .. he is slow and actually soft (except when rooting team mates wives) .. I have no idea why he is paid so much .. put in Portsmouths defence and see how he goes

  • Itsatrap

    The French have a much more civilised legal system in this regard.

    What happens in private between consenting adults is nobody else’s business.

    This is just Anglo-Saxon prudery in action.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/peterwn peterwn

    Itsatrap – English law until fairly recently allowed people to obtain injunctions against media to stop publication of things of this sort. It was treated more as 'breach of confidence' rather than 'privacy' because the information was often sourced from a partner, servant, employee, etc who had an obligation of confidentiality, and the newspaper, etc knew this, but planned to publish the information to the person's detriment (thus fulfilling the three legs of the 'Coco' test set by the Chancery court in London). At that time judges had ruled there was no direct right of 'privacy' but accepted the door was starting to open. It is since Britain joined the EU and thus became party to a European human rights charter that the courts have had to take regard of conflicting privacy and freedom of expression in the charter. Generally for a 'private' person person, privacy prevails. However for a celebity who courts public attention, the attitude is that the public has a right to know about any seedier aspects of the celebity's life.

  • MT_Tinman

    This annoyed me last night when I first read it and still annoys me today.

    I support the stand for an end to name suppression in criminal cases such as the recent primary school teacher thing, the "entertainer" etc. but this case is simply one where some lazy-ass slime prick wants to attack and pull down a fellow who has worked bloody hard to get where he is and gain the ability to earn what he does over something that has nothing to do with (in any sense at all) his profession.

    As such it undermines your efforts in NZ instead of reinforcing them.

  • http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com Elijah Lineberry

    I agree with the ruling by the Judge but wonder what is 'socially harmful' about a chap deciding his lady Wife is frigid middle class cow who won't put out in the way he likes so gets his jollies from a model?

  • jabba

    I said I don't rate Terry as a player and he goes and score their winner overnight and his team mates all hug him .. go figure

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