MP names footballer as Ryan Giggs

2011-05-23 17:11:59

23 May 2011 Last updated at 21:20 Share this page Delicious Digg Facebook reddit StumbleUpon Twitter Email Print Ryan Giggs named by MP as injunction footballer The injunction had blocked the disclosure of details about the alleged affair Continue reading the main story Related Stories Breaking super-injunctions Profile: Ryan Giggs Profile: Imogen Thomas

A married footballer named on Twitter as having an injunction over an alleged affair with a reality TV star has been identified in Parliament as Ryan Giggs.

Lib Dem MP John Hemming named the Manchester United star during an urgent Commons question on privacy orders.

Using parliamentary privilege to break the court order, he said it would not be practical to imprison the 75,000 Twitter users who had named the player.

The High Court has again ruled that the injunction should not be lifted.

It rejected two attempts on Monday to overturn the ban, the first after a Scottish paper named the footballer on Sunday, and the second after Mr Hemming's action.

The player obtained the order against ex-Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas, who is a former Miss Wales, and the Sun newspaper.

The footballer's lawyers have also obtained a High Court order asking Twitter to reveal details of users who had revealed his identity after thousands named him.

Continue reading the main story Analysis Joshua Rozenberg Legal analyst

Lib Dem MP John Hemming was fully protected by parliamentary privilege. Media organisations have only qualified privilege which means they do not have an absolute right to report what an MP says in Parliament.

In reality though once an MP says something in Parliament it is very difficult to stop that becoming widely known.

News organisations were torn between their duty to observe a court order and their obligation to viewers, listeners and readers.

Once some news organisations started publishing Ryan Giggs's name, other news organisations agreed that it would be unrealistic to pretend that the injunction had any purpose or would be maintained beyond the afternoon.

Giggs' privacy: Judges Vs MPs

Parliamentary privilege protects MPs and peers from prosecution for statements made in the House of Commons or House of Lords.

Addressing MPs, Mr Hemming said: "Mr Speaker, with about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all."

House of Commons speaker John Bercow interrupted the MP saying: "Let me just say to the honourable gentleman, I know he's already done it, but occasions such as this are occasions for raising the issues of principle involved, not seeking to flout for whatever purpose."

John Hemming later told the BBC why he had named Mr Giggs.

"Basically when he... showed that he was going to go after relatively normal people and try and prosecute them, for gossiping about him on a matter of trivia, I think he has to be held to account for that," he said.

John Whittingdale, Conservative chairman of the Commons culture committee, said he "regretted" Mr Hemming's use of parliamentary privilege to name Mr Giggs.

"Firstly because I think, if MPs think the law is wrong then we should change the law rather then flout the law," he said.

"And secondly because the result of that is that the only thing being reported is the name of Ryan Giggs and we're rather losing sight of the bigger issue, which is how the law of privacy is operating in the UK."

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