Premier League footballer obtains injunction to stop paper..
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Premier League footballer obtains injunction to stop paper writing about private life
The row over celebrities using draconian privacy laws to restrict the public's right to know was reignited after a Premier League footballer obtained an injunction to prevent a tabloid newspaper writing about his private life.
The player, who is a household name, obtained the legal order on Friday night after discovering that a Sunday newspaper was planning an expose.
He is the latest in a series of high-profile figures attempting to block the media reporting on matters they would rather keep secret.
MPs and civil liberties campaigners are among those who have expressed alarm at the ease with which celebrities can obtain gagging orders.
Powerful showbusiness and sports stars are increasingly relying on the injunctions, rather than challenging unfavourable stories in the libel courts.
Last week it was revealed that golfer Colin Montgomerie, who has a personal fortune of £25 million, had obtained a super injunction designed to prevent the reporting of matters dealing with his private life.
It is called a super injunction because the media are not even allowed to report details of its existence. The existence of the order is only in the public domain now because a newspaper on which it wasn't served chose to report about its existence.
Critics say that many of those who seek injunctions are primarily concerned with protecting their commercial interests and not their privacy.
In January, Mr Justice Tugendhat decided he should lift a gagging order he had previously granted preventing newspapers from reporting that England football star John Terry had had an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the ex-girlfriend of his England teammate Wayne Bridge.
Caught in a media storm: Wayne Bridge and John Terry
The judge decided that Terry's primary concern had been to protect his reputation with his commercial sponsors, rather than his privacy.
He said that the injunction was 'not necessary or proportionate having regard to the level of gravity of interference with the private life of the applicant'. He added that the nub of Terry's complaint was 'to protect his reputation, particularly with sponsors'.
Terry, 29, who earns £7m a year as a footballer, also earns millions from sponsorship deals with companies such as Samsung, Umbro and Nationwide.
Media lawyer Ambi Sitham said: 'There has been an increasing use of privacy law to protect the often false public personas and the commercial interests of high-profile individuals.
'Privacy law was never intended to be used as a de facto PR tool but to protect genuinely private matters.'