A poll commissioned by the Sunday Mirror found that 79 per cent of people believe the use injunctions against the press ‘shows there is one law for the rich and another for the rest of us”.
The ComRes/Sunday Mirror found that only eight per cent disagreed that there is ‘one law for the rich and one for the rest,’and 13 per cent were ‘don’t knows”.
Yesterday’s report said the findings ‘will fuel the furore over the gagging orders which wealthy celebrities use to hide their indiscretions”.
The poll comes after reports that another Premiership footballer has obtained a gagging order to prevent publication details emerging of an extramarital affair.
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Meanwhile, the Daily Star Sunday reported at the weekend that one super-injunction is in force to “hide the blushes” of someone who is dead. And it has published what it describes as the most comprehensive round-up yet on injunctions and super-injunctions.
It reports that some 80 privacy injunctions have been taken out in the last six years (that we know about) gagging the press – of these 12 are proper ‘super-injunctions’, so secret that no-details at all can be revealed about them.
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Meanwhile, British actor Hugh Grant defended the use of super-injunctions on BBC Two’s Newsnight.
He said: “It’s fabulous that people can go to a judge and stop these things being printed, and it’s wonderful that ultimately if it goes on like that the worst of the tabloids will pretty much go out of business, because there’s very little real journalism done in those papers now.
”It’s mainly stealing successful people’s privacy and selling it.”
Grant also had a pop at the Press Complaints Commission. He continued: ”I think the press have been completely out of control for the last 20 years.
”The PCC is the laughing stock of the world in terms of policing the press. They are absolutely toothless.
”The lawyer will say at the end of a conversation about suing someone, ‘Of course you can go to the PCC’, and then everyone has a laugh about it.”
Watch Friday night’s episode of Newsnight on the BBC iPlayer here.
Celebrity publicist told PR Week that injunctions are wrong – but very handy for someone doing his job.
He said: ” ‘It used to be hard work keeping clients out of the papers; now all I do is pick up the phone to a lawyer and within hours my client is protected.’
He told PR Week that he had “three or four super injunctions” currently protecting clients, adding: “Are super injunctions right? No they’re not, but they make my life so much easier.”
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