A fresh privacy injunction has been imposed on The Sun stopping it reporting the name of a woman being sued by her former partner – a wealthy divorcee.
She claims she was the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of the man who is suing her for the return of a substantial sum of money which he says he loaned to her but which she says came in the form of gifts.
The woman, identified in court as DMK, has also obtained an interim order preventing her being identified in legal papers filed against her in the High Court.
DMK obtained the interim injunction against The Sun and on Saturday after she was visited at her home by a Sun journalist last Tuesday.
He said he had seen the court papers in the legal action against her and that the paper was planning to run a two-page story about the case on the following Thursday, 12 May.
According to a legal judgment: “DMK contacted her solicitors, who wrote to The Sun on 11 May, objecting to publication of any information about the domestic abuse alleged by DMK, on the grounds that this would represent an unjustifiable intrusion into privacy which would cause distress and damage.”
Mr Justice Warby, who granted the interim injuntion, said: “The evidence is that publication would be likely to have an adverse impact not only on the claimant’s reasonable expectation of privacy, but also on her health, and on her fair trial rights.”
He said: “In this case I was satisfied on the evidence before me that at a trial of the Queen’s Bench claim the privacy rights of DMK would probably prevail over the Article 10 rights that are engaged and the demands of open justice.
“To arrive at that conclusion it has not been necessary for me to reach a view one way or the other on the allegations of domestic abuse, and I make clear that I have not formed any such view.
“I have concluded that the issue is one that concerns the private and family life of DMK and the Chancery claimant, and what took place or did not take place in the home they shared at the time. It is a matter that concerns the two of them, but does not engage in any significant way any issue of legitimate public interest or concern. The information does not appear to be to public, or even known to third parties to any great extent. Its publication would be likely to cause substantial harm.”
The Supreme Court is set to rule on Thursday over whether an injunction brought against The Sun concerning a celebrity involved in an extra-marital threesome can be lifted.
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