The claimant’s pseudonym

for court purposes

Sun and News of the World

The former Big Brother

star

The Sun has already Thomas has gone to Max

published her story of her Clifford to sell her story
affair with a footballer,
though he was not named

Thomas and the claimant

have differing accounts of
how long the relationship
lasted. He says they met
three times. She says six
months of “frequent”
meetings
CTB is married. He, and his
family, have a right to
privacy under Article 8 of
the European Convention.
This has been supported by
the Appeal Court

The claimant says Thomas

was threatening to sell her
story and demanded £50k.
He agrees to meet her in a
hotel - and tells he he won’t
pay the money

Thomas asks to meet in

another hotel. This could be
a set-up so that
photographs can be taken
of the claimant. He begins
to smell a rat

CTB says he might pay

something. He says Thomas
now demands £100k

The judge suggests there is

evidence of blackmail, but
makes no finding
Thomas warns the claimant
the Sun is about to expose
his “romps” with a busty Big
Brother Babe - suggesting
the hotel meetings were
connected with the romps

The judge says it’s ironic

that Thomas is complaining
she has no right to
anonymity when she’d
probably sold her story to
the Sun (she denies this)

Now Thomas is negotiating

with the Mail on Sunday to
sell her story...

... and it looks as though she

also “collaborated with” the
Sunday Mirror
Here we go again. The judge
explains the balancing act
he now has to do between
CTB’s right to privacy and
Thomas’s right to freedom
of expression

The judge rejects the

charge that he and his
colleagues are introducing a
privacy law by the back
door. They’re only doing
what parliament told them
to do

The judge notes that the

House of Lords has backed
four key cases involving
privacy. This means they
must agree with the
principles that are being
developed
 Most of the cases the
courts are having to rule on
involve ‘kiss and tell.’ Quite
often they involve
blackmail, too. Blackmail is
a crime: the victims are
allowed to remain
anonymous.

Is there a public interest in

the story being published?
The judge has consulted the
press complaints
commission code and finds
that it doesn’t measure up
to the industry’s own public
interest test

No one has even tried arguing

there is any public interest in
publishing this story

The only argument from the

defence has been that the
story is already in the public
domain
Previous test cases on the
“public domain” argument
have drawn a distinction
between, eg, government
secrets and a person’s
private life.
 Judges have to decide on
the facts of each case

There’s a distinction
between the protection the
courts will give to serious
journalism and tawdry tittle
tattle

The judge finds CTB has

the right to privacy and that
no one has even argued the
case that freedom of
expression should trump
privacy or for any notion of
“public interest”

There’s nothing to stop

Thomas from selling her
story - but only as long as
she doesn’t intrude on the
private lives of others.