Maybe of Interest

A few posts back there was mention about Rachel Ehrenfeld and her book Funding Evil, documenting Khalid bin Mahfouz,s alleged financial support of terrorism, and Mr Justice Eady entered a default judgment in favour of Khalid bin Mahfouz in his "libel tourism" case against Rachel Ehrenfeld.

Several months ago there was a case involving a blogger by the name of Night Jack who was exposed by The Times reporter Patrick Foster.

Night Jack had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name

NightJack was revealed by the Times as detective constable Richard Horton, of the Lancashire Constabulary. In a landmark high court decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect Horton from being identified, saying that the mere fact that the blogger wanted to remain anonymous did not mean that he had a "reasonable expectation" of doing so, or that the Times was under an enforceable obligation to him to maintain that anonymity.

Times Reporter Patrick Foster

Horton, identified by the Times journalist Patrick Foster, was disciplined by his force and stopped his blog after describing the day he was discovered as "easily the worst afternoon of my life". To some this smacked of censorship, although the Times argued that Horton was publishing confidential material about criminal proceedings that could identify those involved, such as sex offences against children

In April, NightJack won an Orwell Prize for political writing, and his blog was admired as a gritty, insider's view of modern day policing.

Thanx to Mr Justice Eady Night Jack is no more

A few more judgements from

In December 2004 Eady ruled in favor of MP George Galloway after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on documents found by journalist David Blair in Baghdad.

The documents appeared to show that Galloway had received money from Saddam Hussein's regime. In its defence, the newspaper claimed that the public interest in Galloway's actions was of sufficient public interest to outweigh the damage caused to the MP's reputation.

Eady ruled in favour of Galloway, on the basis that he had not been given a fair or reasonable opportunity to make inquiries or meaningful comment upon the documents before they were published.

In the 2006 case of Jameel v Wall Street Journal Europe Eady ruled in favor of the plaintiff, a Saudi Arabian banker. The Wall Street Journal had listed Jameel among several Saudi businessmen who were allegedly being monitored for support of terrorism. In 2009 the Law Lords overturned Eady's ruling, with Lord Hoffman accusing Mr Justice Eady of being "hostile to the spirit of Reynolds", a reference to the public interest defence established in Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd.