Press outcry at varied threats to free speech

It was a good week for Private Eye but a bad week for kiss-and- tell tabloid stories, as two High Court decisions cut through the war talk this week to make headlines.Satirical magazine Private Eye, famous for setting aside a quarter of its annual budget for fighting unsuccessful libel actions, was awarded 100,000 in a 'rare triumph' after an accountant dropped his nine-year libel case against the magazine (The Independent, 8 November).

John Stuart Condliffe, of Cornish accountants Condliffe Hilton, had objected to a 1992 article which alleged that he overcharged clients, and had launched litigation described by the judge as 'the most disproportionate he had ever come across'.

The magazine, whose editor Ian Hislop admitted that 'we don't often win in court, ie never', claimed the decision was a 'victory for the power of journalism'.A less joyful day for journalists was last week's decision by the High Court 'banning a newspaper from publishing details of a married footballer's alleged infidelities' (The Times, 12 November).

The decision, which was described by Sunday People editor Neil Wallis as a 'love rat's charter', was made under the Human Rights Act 1998 and declared that sexual relationships were confidential in law.

Press Complaints Commission chairman Lord Wakeham described the ruling as 'an unprecedented assault on press freedom'.While on the subject of gagging orders, civil rights barrister Peter Herbert could soon be the target of one, courtesy of the Bar Council (The Independent, 12 November).

Mr Herbert, a barrister in Michael Mansfield's chambers, spoke to a newspaper two years ago about a client's allegations of race discrimination against the Crown Prosecution Service.

'This week a Bar Council disciplinary tribunal will decide whether his statements were personal opinion - and therefore in breach of the Bar's code of conduct,' the paper reported.In an editorial, The Independent made clear the need for free speech 'especially when we don't like it'.

Claiming that the Herbert case is a 'test case redefining the right to free speech', the paper compares the recent tabloid splash about Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine's son being treated for drug addiction with the 'wrong' High Court decision banning reporting of the married footballer's infidelities.

In the 'disparate cases of Mr Herbert, Lord Irvine and Anon [the footballer]', the paper argues that 'the law in a free society must err on the side of free speech'.More bad behaviour with the story of 'obsessive' and 'violent' barrister Justin Webster, who was last week given a two-year jail sentence for 'subjecting a former lover to a terrifying stalking campaign of mental abuse and death threats' (Guardian, 6 November).

Initially jailed in 1999, the 'evil, manipulative and psychopathic' Walker made 'up to 100 abusive and threatening calls a day' to his former girlfriend Annette Power, even telephoning her from the police station when he was eventually arrested.And finally, spare a thought for senior judges, who were ordered this week to 'forgo their traditional rights to a chauffeur-driven limousine to take them to and from court' (Time Out, 7-14 November).

Instead, defendants will be treated to the sight of Lord Justices piling out of mini cabs, or - even better - people carriers, the vehicles so beloved of mothers doing the school run.Victoria MacCallum