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I seriously have to pinch myself to believe the BBC's sheer gall. They are alleging (no, stating as a fact) that a trial judge erred in law, but then affirming they believe if they appealed against said judgment, they would lose.

To illustrate why the Judge erred in concluding that Cliff had a reasonable expectation of privacy, they quote the 2010 Guardian case which relates to 5 terrorist suspects. Yes, I repeat: TERRORIST SUSPECTS. So what...there is zero difference in the law between Sir Cliff and 5 alleged terrorists? Persons liable to kill people imminently, and a 30-year-old assault allegation riddled with inconsistencies? The two should be treated identically?

If you performed Mr Justice Mann's balancing test for the five "terrorists", the latter would have a prima facie expectation of privacy, but one which would easily be outweighed by the countervailing public interest of Threat to Life. Trouble is, I'm not clear on how this applies to Cliff.

Hall also suggests in his letter that newspaper editors should be allowed to decide when to name. Are they gods or something? The legal justification for this seems to be a quote by a dissenting judge in Campbell v MGN, which the newspaper lost in the House of Lords Court. "Judges are not newspaper editors". Well, they're not plumbers either, why is this relevant? In the Campbell, Mosley and Rocknroll cases, the media lost privacy cases over publications that had presumably been approved by editors. Where is the Judgment that states editors are above the Human Rights Act?

Finally, Hall makes a significant error in law when he writes this: "The suggestion that the suspect’s privacy rights might be involved...had never received unequivocal judicial endorsement until the judgment in this case." What about Sir Richard Enriques and Lord Justice Leveson who both said that suspects should not be named until charged. Why doesn't their opinion count? Because it doesn't suit the BBC.