Lawyers for Elton John and husband David Furnish have launched an aggressive campaign to silence media outlets from naming the famous pair in an attempt to prevent details of their celebrity threesome scandal from going viral online.
Despite this, a British MP has reportedly said he is planning to break the Court of Appeal injunction and will use the protection of parliamentary privilege in order to “out” the famous pair.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
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The National Enquirer originally exposed David Furnish’ extramarital affair last week when it ran the headline, “Elton John Betrayed by Cheating Husband!” on its front page.
The couple have since taken out a super-injunction, barring the press in England from naming names, on the basis that the pair do not want their children learn about it.
Is the celebrity injunction morally acceptable?
According to many newspaper editors and MPs, there is more at stake to this story than the potential embarrassment of Elton John’s children. Many have complained that the High Court injunction curtails basic press freedoms and makes a mockery of the privacy laws being used to justify such censorship, especially given the fact that the details of the story are already widely reported online.
Independent.co.uk reports:
Judges found that the right to “private and family life” of the couple, who have children and were identified as PJS and YMA, outweighed the public interest in i right to publish an interview with one of the people allegedly involved in the threesome.
They overturned a High Court judge’s ruling that the newspaper was entitled to “correct” the public image the couple had created through the media.
It means the couple’s identity still cannot be published in England and Wales, though they have been named in Scotland, the US and extensively online through international outlets and social media.
The Scottish paper said it was revealing the identities “because there is no legal reason not to publish in Scotland what has been banned in England and Wales”.
An editorial read: “Their big secret is no secret at all. America knows. The internet knows. The whole world knows. So now Scotland knows. And so we should.” It did not name the couple online.
John Hemming, the MP who acted to name Giggs five years ago, told the Telegraph: “It’s absurd trying to hold back the flow of information in the digital age by using a court order that can only go as far as Hadrian’s Wall.
And Philip Davies MP, a Commons justice select committee member, called the situation “an absolute farce”.
“I don’t think celebrities who use the media to secure positive media coverage when it suits them should be able to use the law of the land to prevent coverage they do not like,” he said.
While the appeal court judgement prohibits naming the couple, it does not prevent reporting of some of the details stemming from the Sun on Sunday’s allegations.
Lord Justice Jackson, one of the Court of Appeal judges, said: “In 2007 or 2008 the claimant [PJS] met AB. There is a conflict of evidence as to whether they met through a mutual friend or on Facebook. [PJS] and AB had occasional sexual encounters starting in 2009.
“AB already had a partner, CD. In a text message exchange on 15 December 2011, the claimant asked if CD was ‘up for a three-way’. AB said that CD was. Accordingly, the three met for a three-way sexual encounter which they duly carried out. After that encounter, the sexual relationship between the claimant and AB came to an end, but they remained friends.”
AB and CD approached the Sun around early January 2016, after which the newspaper’s lawyers contacted PJS, who began legal proceedings.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Seriously if it wasn’t for the original newspapers greedyness and the greedyness of the person who is selling their story, then the boys wouldn’t of been forced to take legal action in the first place. It’s a private matter, they didn’t make it public. Somebody else did, to cause trouble and make money, and now some nobody mp, jumping on the band wagon to get himself noticed. I swear the houses of parliament is worse than a kids nursery.
Seriously if it wasn’t for the original newspapers greedyness and the greedyness of the person who is selling their story, then the boys wouldn’t of been forced to take legal action in the first place. It’s a private matter, they didn’t make it public. Somebody else did, to cause trouble and make money, and now some nobody mp, jumping on the band wagon to get himself noticed. I swear the houses of parliament is worse than a kids nursery.
I really don’t get why they bothered with the injunction. No, their private life isn’t anyone else’s business, but they are public figures and trying to hide what others are hell bent on making public just draws further interest and attention. Where are the lawyers and publicists who I’m assuming they are paying enough to have the good sense to advise them against this course of action? Were they should be is fired. To be honest, if I had read this, I would rolled my eyes and moved on, instead I had to eventually hunt it down to find out who they were (that’s sixty seconds I’ll never get back) , roll my eyes, write this comment and move on.
Come to think of it, I’m more interested in knowing who the jerks who betrayed their trust are, as clearly this was meant to be kept a private matter.
I really don’t get why they bothered with the injunction. No, their private life isn’t anyone else’s business, but they are public figures and trying to hide what others are hell bent on making public just draws further interest and attention. Where are the lawyers and publicists who I’m assuming they are paying enough to have the good sense to advise them against this course of action? Where they should be is fired. To be honest, if I had read this, I would have rolled my eyes and moved on, instead I had to eventually hunt it down to find out who they were (that’s sixty seconds I’ll never get back) , roll my eyes, write this comment and move on.
Come to think of it, I’m more interested in knowing who the jerks who betrayed their trust are, as clearly this was meant to be kept a private matter.