A judge has stopped the media from reporting the details of a divorce after the father of the husband involved said that publication would cause him embarrassment and could ruin his career.
Media lawyers had argued that there was a “serious public interest” in revealing the “cosy financial arrangements” that had emerged in the divorce hearing but District Judge Hilary Bradley said in the High Court that the matters which the media wanted to report related to people not directly involved with the divorce proceedings. She added that when there was direct conflict between the right to the freedom of the press and the right to a private life, confidentiality should prevail. She said that the husband’s father, in particular, was concerned about the impact on his career and even the risk to his life if the details became public.
In ancillary relief proceedings in general, assets are usually kept confidential to best help the aim of full and frank disclosure, however the newspaper lawyers said that this was a special case and that to stop them publishing would be an “unjustifiable derogation from the open justice principle”. However, the judge disagreed, stating that when there was such a conflict the court should find in favour of privacy being maintained.