John Terry has received plenty of criticism over the past couple of weeks and rightly so, but I’m not going to drag on about how wrong he was and that he should speak out rather than remain silent because I’m sure everyone has heard enough about it! But one of the most notable developments that has come about from the John Terry episode is the landmark ruling by Mr Justice Tugendhat that swung the pendulum back in favour of freedom of speech, when he revoked an injunction granted to John Terry, the Chelsea and England captain, which had blocked reporting of his extra-marital affair. Mr Justice Tugendhat commented that while “freedom to live as one chooses” was a valuable principle, “so is the freedom to criticise – within the limits of the law – the conduct of other members of society as being socially harmful or wrong”.
Since then Portsmouth manager, Avram Grant, has been named as the Premiership manager that last year was seen visiting a Thai brothel. At the time, the newspaper blamed “creeping privacy laws” for preventing it from publishing further details. For too long the rich and famous have been using the law in ways that are not open to the rest of us. Super injunctions appear to be used by celebrities to invoke a privacy law by the back door. A privacy law that was designed to help those who are weak and vulnerable rather than rich selfish footballers such as John Terry who was more concerned about losing his sponsorship deals than anything else.
However, it remains to be seen whether Mr Justice Tugendhat's ruling marks a sea change, or a fleeting zigzag.
