Privacy and Injunctions - Evidence - Parliament

Richard Caseby, Group Managing Editor, News Group Newspapers, Dominic Mohan, editor,
The Sun, and Justin Walford, Editorial Legal Counsel, News Group Newspapers—Oral
evidence (QQ 1511–1593)
readers to look at what is being said on the internet. As a result, this person’s name
becomes more and more widely spread, to such an extent that at some stage you take a
decision that you may as well publish his name in the newspaper because it is now in the
public domain and no one can complain—a bit like breaching the injunction ordered by the
judge because the name was mentioned in Parliament. Is that the sort of thing that your
newspaper does?
Justin Walford: No. I do not think any newspaper could make a decision that there
was enough material in the public domain that they would now just—
Q1577 Lord Gold: No, you are picking up on the last bit. Start at the beginning on
whether you followed it through in the hope that in due course you would be allowed to
publish the story.
Richard Caseby: That has not been done with any intention like that. In a way, the
same argument could have been used a generation ago. When I was on The Sunday Times
there was the “Spycatcher” book; I don’t know whether you remember it at all. It was
published, I think, in New Zealand.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Australia.
Richard Caseby: I am sorry; Australia. It was a very old-fashioned form of social
media, in a way; it was out there, in the public domain, in another part of the world.
Eventually, The Sunday Times published it.
Q1578 Lord Thomas of Gresford: I do not think you are quite grasping the
point. It is circular, isn’t it? You encourage people to look at Twitter, then you say, “Well,
it’s out.” You go to the court and you ask the judge to reverse the injunction that has been
served on you. So in the space of about two days you have got that name on your front
page, because you have encouraged people to look at Twitter.
Dominic Mohan: Surely we are not encouraging censorship of reporting things that
are being discussed on Twitter by millions of people. That would be quite draconian.
Q1579 Lord Thomas of Gresford: Was the injunction served on The Sun, as a
matter of interest, in the case of Ryan Giggs?
Justin Walford: Yes, the injunction was served; there is no dispute about that. I can
see where you are going with this: if you like, you bring about the application you can make
to court to put it to one side. I do not think that actually happened, however.
Q1580 Lord Thomas of Gresford: I have quoted the passage from the
newspaper, which seems to suggest that that is exactly what happened.
Justin Walford: What happened was that we picked up on—as did Fleet Street as a
whole; it was not just The Sun—major discussions that were already on Twitter. It was not a
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