Super injunctions: judges dig heels in as farce ensues

The bizarre pantomime surrounding the granting of injunctions, and so-called super-injunctions, to scandal-hit celebrities, forbidding their identification in the press, just got sillier.

The News of the World today published pictures of Big Brother contestant-turned-glamour model Imogen Thomas leaving a hotel where she had a romantic tryst with a premiership footballer who enjoys a "wholesome family man" image.

The paper is able to print the photos, identify Thomas (above), give details of the affair and disclose her lover's profession and status – but not name him. He has been granted an injunction protecting his privacy.

This one isn't a super-injunction because the NoW and other papers are allowed to mention that the injunction exists in the first place; it's anyone's guess how many orders which forbid the disclosure of their own existence are currently in force.

What's ridiculous is that while the gagging order might put Mr X's identity safely out of reach of the archetypal out-of-touch High Court judge, any schmo with a laptop can type 'Imogen Thomas' into Twitter and come up with a suspect.

The farce was piled on even thicker on Friday when the BBC was forced to censor panel show Have I Got News For You after Tory MP - and chick lit novelist - Louise Bagshawe revealed his identity to a studio audience.

Stopping short of actually naming the respected player, Bagshawe instead said a phrase with which, she said, his name rhymed while her team-mate, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, feigned outrage that a Tory MP should flout a court ruling so blatantly. The BBC censored Bagshawe's phrase on broadcast.

Many feel that the injunctions mean legal protection is afforded only to those who can afford it. Other observers, like William Langley writing in the Sunday Telegraph, think they are ineffective and untenable, with the courts waging an un-winnable war against a sea of cyber-gossip.

But for the meantime, it looks as if the gagging orders are here to stay. According to the Sunday Times, the master of the rolls, Lord Neuberger, will tell the government next month that the injunctions are necessary.

Neuberger is conducting a review into the practice, instigated after the Trafigura and John Terry cases brought 'super-injunction' into the public vocabulary in 2009. According to the Sunday Times, though, those hoping for reform will be disappointed when he publishes his findings and recommends that the courts should continue to protect the privacy of the rich and famous with gagging orders. ·