b)
the extent to which it is already available in that medium and the extent
to which steps are being or can be taken to remove or limit access to any other
publication in that or any other medium.
In short, the question whether material has, or is about to, become available to the
public should be considered with reference to, inter alia, the medium and form in
relation to which injunctive relief is sought.
35.
In the light of the above, I consider that the Court of Appeal focused too
narrowly on the disclosures already made on the internet, and did not give due
weight to the qualitative difference in intrusiveness and distress likely to be involved
in what is now proposed by way of unrestricted publication by the English media in
hard copy as well as on their own internet sites. There is little doubt that there would
be a media storm. It would involve not merely disclosure of names and generalised
description of the nature of the sexual activities involved, but the most intimate
details. This would be likely to add greatly and on a potentially enduring basis to the
intrusiveness and distress felt by the appellant, his partner and, by way of increased
media attention now and/or in the future, their children. The Court of Appeal did not
do justice to this qualitative difference either when it said that the “wall-to-wall
excoriation which the claimant fears has already been taking place for the last two
weeks in the English press”, as a result of “numerous headlines such as ‘celebrity
love cheat’ and ‘Gag couple alleged to have had a threesome’” (para 47(ii), or when
it went on to refer to the likely impact of the proposed publication as “a further
unwelcome intrusion”, increasing what is being suffered already, not “a shock
revelation, as publication in January would have been” (para 47(iii)).
36.
As to section 12(4)(b), this is of particular relevance in relation to the
appellant’s and his partner’s children. The respondents subscribe to the Independent
Press Standards Organisation (“IPSO”), whose Editors’ Code of Practice of January
2016 provides that “Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family
life” and that editors “will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual’s
private life without consent” (clause 3(i) and (ii)). The Code notes that there can be
exceptions in the public interest, emphasising however that “editors must
demonstrate an exceptional public interest to over-ride the normally paramount
interests of [children under 16])”. The last point echoes the thinking in article 3(1)
of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (providing that “In all
actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare
institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best
interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”) which has in turn informed
the ECtHR’s and United Kingdom courts understanding of ECHR article 8: see eg
ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] 2 AC 166, H v
Lord Advocate 2012 SC (UKSC) 308, H (H) v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian
Republic (Genoa) [2013] 1 AC 338 and Zoumbas v Secretary of State for the Home
Department [2013] 1 WLR 3690.
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