When 'super injunctions' are about more than mere sexual peccadillos

I was up early this morning, and as is my way, I turned on Sky News - their ticker service in bright yellow immediately tells me whether anything major has happened overnight.  The screen was full of the news that Paul and Rachel Chandler had been released from their captivity at the hands of Somail pirates.  I turned over to the Beeb and...nothing but Burma.  It was clear then that something odd was going on, and we now know what it was.  Just last weekend I'd remarked to a friend that it had all gone very quiet about the Chandlers and we wondered why that was.



Some months ago the couple's family sought, and got, a super injunction prohibiting the media from reporting developments on the basis that such coverage might well prolong their captivity.  As the Beeb 'The Editors' blog says, 'The injunction was designed to protect the safety of the Chandlers and prevented us from referring to its very existence'. 

The injunction set out two conditions that had to be met before the media could report the couple's freedom: they must have left the badlands that are Somalia, and they must be in the care of Foreign Office officials.

The Beeb and some others observed the injunction, Sky and some others didn't.  We now have war of righteous words taking place on the internet.  The Beeb has the moral high ground, and arguably is astride its high horse - whereas Sky reports the injunction, but makes no mention of its terms.  Without seeing the wording of the injunction it's impossible to know whether Sky and other s are, as the BBC blog suggests, in contempt of court: the Beeb blog adopts a 'holier than thou' tone when it says 'There is no public interest in breaking the law simply to report a scoop'. 

The Chandlers got away safe and sound, so the risk that Sky and others took in apparently breaking the injuction (if indeed they did  break its terms) didn't rebound on them.  They got their scoop and no doubt audience figures went up accordingly.  However, had things gone awry, the organisations concerned might just have had blood on their hands.

I suspect that a news organisation outside of the UK ignored the injunction and broke the story, and once that had happened Sky and the rest probably made the judgement that, if the news was out there, they might as well run the story.

It's going to be interesting to see what the real facts of this matter are, and whether any further action is taken - I would assume that the Sky lawyers were all over this before a word or an image was broadcast.