BBC’s Andrew Marr admits super-injunction
Andrew Marr has revealed he took out a super-injunction to protect his family’s privacy. The BBC presenter now says he is “embarrassed” about the gagging order.
BBC presenter Andrew Marr won a High Court injunction in January 2008 to suppress reports of an extra-marital affair
In an interview with the Daily Mail he said: “I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists.
“Am I embarrassed by it? Yes. Am I uneasy about it? Yes.”
But he added: “I also had my own family to think about, and I believed this story was nobody else’s business.
“I still believe there was, under those circumstances, no public interest in it.”
But Mr Marr, who is the BBC’s former political editor, added that the use of injunctions seemed to be “running out of control”.
There is a case for privacy in a limited number of difficult situations, but then you have to move on. Andrew Marr
“There is a case for privacy in a limited number of difficult situations, but then you have to move on. They shouldn’t be forever and a proper sense of proportion is required,” he added.
His comments come amid a growing disquiet at the use by celebrities of injunctions and so-called super-injunctions to prevent media reporting of their private lives.
Last week Prime Minister David Cameron sounded a warning about the way judges are creating a new law of privacy “rather than Parliament”.
Read more: David Cameron 'uneasy' over courts ruling on privacy
Mr Cameron said: “The judges are creating a sort of privacy law whereas what ought to happen in a parliamentary democracy is Parliament, which you elect and put there, should decide how much protection do we want for individuals and how much freedom of the press and the rest of it.
“So I am a little uneasy about what is happening.”
The Prime Minister’s remarks came after High Court judge Mr Justice Eady issued what was thought to be the first order permanently blocking publication of material relating to an individual’s private life.
In another High Court hearing, a married Premier League footballer who reportedly had an affair with Big Brother’s Imogen Thomas won the right to maintain his anonymity.