Details emerge as Welsh model and the Sun attempt to lift court judgment being called ‘death of the kiss and tell’ The model Imogen Thomas’s legal fight to name the married footballer with whom she had an affair took a dramatic twist when she found herself accused of allegedly blackmailing the man with demands for first £50,000 and then £100,000. At the high court in London, Mr Justice Eady – explaining why he had granted an injunction preventing the naming of the footballer last month – said there was “ample reason not to trust” Thomas, 28, in an eight-page judgment that allowed some details of her dealings with the footballer to be made public. The judge noted that evidence before the court on 14 April “appeared strongly to suggest that the claimant [the anonymous footballer] was being blackmailed” – although he did not reach a final conclusion on the point. Thomas denies the allegation. The former Big Brother contestant is at the centre of the storm about the use of gagging orders to suppress publication of celebrity sexual indiscretions. Controversy over gagging orders has grown since the names of several celebrities claimed to have taken out injunctions to protect their privacy began circulating on Twitter. Thomas was also in court to try to have the ban on naming the player lifted, in conjunction with lawyers acting for the Sun. Eady’s ruling was so harsh some lawyers argued it could amount to the death of the tabloid “kiss and tell”. Evidence put before Eady last month by the footballer accused Thomas of asking for money, a signed football shirt and match tickets. Thomas and the Premiership player met four times between September and December last year, according to the footballer’s evidence. She then contacted him by text in March, which led him to conclude she was thinking of selling her story, according to the judge’s summary. She told him that “she wanted, or ‘needed’ a payment from him of £50,000″. The footballer agreed to meet her “in a hotel where he was staying” in April. There he gave her a signed football shirt but said he was not prepared to give her £50,000. She asked to see him again shortly afterwards, to which “he agreed with reluctance” and provided her with some football tickets. Although the position was “by no means clear” Eady said the evidence “appeared to suggest” Thomas arranged the two hotel meetings “in collaboration with photographers and/or journalists”. The player claimed that on 13 April, he texted Thomas to say he might be willing to offer her some money after all. At this point, Thomas is accused of attempting to solicit £100,000 from the player – actions the judge thought could be interpreted as blackmail, although he added: “I cannot come to any final conclusion about it at this stage.” The next day, an account of a sexual relationship between Thomas and an unidentified footballer appeared in the Sun, prompting the request for an injunction to stop his identity being revealed. Thomas said she was “stunned” by how she had been portrayed in the ruling, and her legal team said she denied asking for money. Reading from a statement, she said: “Yet again my name and reputation have been trashed while the man I had a relationship with is able to hide. What’s more I can’t even defend myself because I have been gagged. If this is the way privacy injunctions are supposed to work there is something seriously wrong with the law.” The Sun sought to have the gagging order lifted, arguing that Thomas’s right to freedom of expression, covered by article 10 of the European convention on human rights, outweighed the footballer’s right to remain nameless under article 8, the right to privacy. Eady’s initial ruling said there “can be no automatic priority accorded to freedom of speech” and that “as in so many ‘kiss and tell’ cases” there was no obvious justification in naming the player on public interest grounds. The judge noted that lawyers for the Sun had “not even argued that publication would serve the public interest”. That led some to conclude that reporting of kiss and tell stories could become considerably less likely. David Allen Green, head of media at Preiskel & Co, said: “It is a civilised and welcome judgment, but the decision by Sir David Eady is a serious blow to the tabloid press. “The traditional kiss and tell story is now increasingly costly and difficult.” Earlier yesterday, it emerged that another married premiership footballer had obtained an injunction preventing the publication of details relating to an alleged affair by a red top tabloid. Most of the gagging orders in existence have been taken out by men preventing the revelation of sexual indiscretions, although Eady dismissed suggestions that he and other judges were “introducing a law of privacy by the back door”. Instead, Eady pointedly observed that the way the Human Rights Act would work in practice is hardly a great surprise. He cited the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, who told the peers at the time of the bill’s passage through parliament in 1997 that “any privacy law developed by judges following the enactment would be a better law”. Privacy & the media Privacy The Sun Newspapers & magazines News International National newspapers Newspapers Dan Sabbagh Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Details emerge as Welsh model and the Sun attempt to lift court judgment being called ‘death of the kiss and tell’ The model Imogen Thomas’s legal fight to name the married footballer with whom she had an affair took a dramatic twist when she found herself accused of allegedly blackmailing the man with demands for first £50,000 and then £100,000. At the high court in London, Mr Justice Eady – explaining why he had granted an injunction preventing the naming of the footballer last month – said there was “ample reason not to trust” Thomas, 28, in an eight-page judgment that allowed some details of her dealings with the footballer to be made public. The judge noted that evidence before the court on 14 April “appeared strongly to suggest that the claimant [the anonymous footballer] was being blackmailed” – although he did not reach a final conclusion on the point. Thomas denies the allegation. The former Big Brother contestant is at the centre of the storm about the use of gagging orders to suppress publication of celebrity sexual indiscretions. Controversy over gagging orders has grown since the names of several celebrities claimed to have taken out injunctions to protect their privacy began circulating on Twitter. Thomas was also in court to try to have the ban on naming the player lifted, in conjunction with lawyers acting for the Sun. Eady’s ruling was so harsh some lawyers argued it could amount to the death of the tabloid “kiss and tell”. Evidence put before Eady last month by the footballer accused Thomas of asking for money, a signed football shirt and match tickets. Thomas and the Premiership player met four times between September and December last year, according to the footballer’s evidence. She then contacted him by text in March, which led him to conclude she was thinking of selling her story, according to the judge’s summary. She told him that “she wanted, or ‘needed’ a payment from him of £50,000″. The footballer agreed to meet her “in a hotel where he was staying” in April. There he gave her a signed football shirt but said he was not prepared to give her £50,000. She asked to see him again shortly afterwards, to which “he agreed with reluctance” and provided her with some football tickets. Although the position was “by no means clear” Eady said the evidence “appeared to suggest” Thomas arranged the two hotel meetings “in collaboration with photographers and/or journalists”. The player claimed that on 13 April, he texted Thomas to say he might be willing to offer her some money after all. At this point, Thomas is accused of attempting to solicit £100,000 from the player – actions the judge thought could be interpreted as blackmail, although he added: “I cannot come to any final conclusion about it at this stage.” The next day, an account of a sexual relationship between Thomas and an unidentified footballer appeared in the Sun, prompting the request for an injunction to stop his identity being revealed. Thomas said she was “stunned” by how she had been portrayed in the ruling, and her legal team said she denied asking for money. Reading from a statement, she said: “Yet again my name and reputation have been trashed while the man I had a relationship with is able to hide. What’s more I can’t even defend myself because I have been gagged. If this is the way privacy injunctions are supposed to work there is something seriously wrong with the law.” The Sun sought to have the gagging order lifted, arguing that Thomas’s right to freedom of expression, covered by article 10 of the European convention on human rights, outweighed the footballer’s right to remain nameless under article 8, the right to privacy. Eady’s initial ruling said there “can be no automatic priority accorded to freedom of speech” and that “as in so many ‘kiss and tell’ cases” there was no obvious justification in naming the player on public interest grounds. The judge noted that lawyers for the Sun had “not even argued that publication would serve the public interest”. That led some to conclude that reporting of kiss and tell stories could become considerably less likely. David Allen Green, head of media at Preiskel & Co, said: “It is a civilised and welcome judgment, but the decision by Sir David Eady is a serious blow to the tabloid press. “The traditional kiss and tell story is now increasingly costly and difficult.” Earlier yesterday, it emerged that another married premiership footballer had obtained an injunction preventing the publication of details relating to an alleged affair by a red top tabloid. Most of the gagging orders in existence have been taken out by men preventing the revelation of sexual indiscretions, although Eady dismissed suggestions that he and other judges were “introducing a law of privacy by the back door”. Instead, Eady pointedly observed that the way the Human Rights Act would work in practice is hardly a great surprise. He cited the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, who told the peers at the time of the bill’s passage through parliament in 1997 that “any privacy law developed by judges following the enactment would be a better law”. Privacy & the media Privacy The Sun Newspapers & magazines News International National newspapers Newspapers Dan Sabbagh Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Ali Dizaei vows to rejoin Scotland Yard after corruption charges are quashed
May 16, 2011 No Comment
Court of appeal rules new evidence ‘significantly discredits’ principal witness in former police chief’s trial last year Ali Dizaei, the former police chief whose convictions for corruption were quashed on Monday, walked out of prison and vowed to rejoin Scotland Yard. Dizaei was dismissed from the police service in disgrace, ending a 25-year career, after the convictions last year. But the court of appeal ruled that new evidence “significantly discredits” the principal witness against him. Dizaei, who rose to the rank of commander with Scotland Yard, served over a year in prison, during which time he says he suffered abuse and attacks. Hours after the judgment, Dizaei was released from Leyhill open prison. But the court of appeal said while it would quash his convictions, “the interests of justice” meant he should face a retrial. The judges said the officer once tipped to be a possible chief constable, should face a fresh hearing over the criminal charges, finding there was “a good deal of evidence” to support a prosecution, independent of the discredited main witness. Dizaei was granted bail. Dizaei told a news conference: “When I clear my name it is my intention to go back to the Metropolitan police and serve my time.” He described his time in prison as hell and like “putting a hand in a wasps’ nest” as he lived alongside the kind of criminals he had spent over two decades trying to jail. Dizaei, 48, said the appeal court’s ruling showed his integrity was “completely intact” and that he was determined to clear his name. In January 2010, a jury at Southwark crown court unanimously convicted Dizaei of abusing his power as a senior police officer and found he had tried to frame a young web designer in a row over £600. He was jailed for four years. Some at Scotland Yard, of whom Dizaei was a vocal critic of their record on race, were said to have greeted his conviction by popping champagne corks. The career and reputation of Dizaei, a former president of the National Black Police Association, looked dead and buried after the conviction triggered his sacking
Continue reading …Ali Dizaei vows to rejoin Scotland Yard after corruption charges are quashed
May 16, 2011 No Comment
Court of appeal rules new evidence ‘significantly discredits’ principal witness in former police chief’s trial last year Ali Dizaei, the former police chief whose convictions for corruption were quashed on Monday, walked out of prison and vowed to rejoin Scotland Yard. Dizaei was dismissed from the police service in disgrace, ending a 25-year career, after the convictions last year. But the court of appeal ruled that new evidence “significantly discredits” the principal witness against him. Dizaei, who rose to the rank of commander with Scotland Yard, served over a year in prison, during which time he says he suffered abuse and attacks. Hours after the judgment, Dizaei was released from Leyhill open prison. But the court of appeal said while it would quash his convictions, “the interests of justice” meant he should face a retrial. The judges said the officer once tipped to be a possible chief constable, should face a fresh hearing over the criminal charges, finding there was “a good deal of evidence” to support a prosecution, independent of the discredited main witness. Dizaei was granted bail. Dizaei told a news conference: “When I clear my name it is my intention to go back to the Metropolitan police and serve my time.” He described his time in prison as hell and like “putting a hand in a wasps’ nest” as he lived alongside the kind of criminals he had spent over two decades trying to jail. Dizaei, 48, said the appeal court’s ruling showed his integrity was “completely intact” and that he was determined to clear his name. In January 2010, a jury at Southwark crown court unanimously convicted Dizaei of abusing his power as a senior police officer and found he had tried to frame a young web designer in a row over £600. He was jailed for four years. Some at Scotland Yard, of whom Dizaei was a vocal critic of their record on race, were said to have greeted his conviction by popping champagne corks. The career and reputation of Dizaei, a former president of the National Black Police Association, looked dead and buried after the conviction triggered his sacking
Continue reading …More than half of voters approve of President Obama’s job performance and would at least consider reelecting him—even though 57% of them disapprove of they way he is handling the economy, a Politico-George Washington University poll finds. Some 52% approve of the president’s work so far, and 72% approve…
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Request for arrest warrants against Gaddafi is irrelevant and reveals ‘double standard’, say officials Libyan officials have described the international criminal court’s move to seek an arrest warrant against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as irrelevant, claiming it would have little impact on the country’s embattled leader. Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, cited the continued liberty of Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, as an example of the ICC’s “impotence”, saying the veteran dictator was safe in Khartoum despite claims that he had played a direct role in the genocide in Darfur. An arrest warrant was issued for Bashir in 2008. However, he still travels around Africa and no attempts have been made to seize him. Kaim said Libya was not one of the 114 member states of the ICC, which was created by the Rome treaty in 1988. He said the court had no jurisdiction on Libyan affairs and suggested it had a vendetta against African states. “We are more interested [in] the human rights council and in moving forward with trying to implement a ceasefire,” he said. Warrants are likely to be issued for Gaddafi, one of his sons, Saif al-Islam, and his trusted intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi. ICC prosecutor Luis Mareno- Ocampo claimed he had built a strong case that each of the three men had directed attacks on civilians since the violent anti-regime uprising began in eastern Libya three months ago. Neither Gaddafi nor his son reacted to the imminent warrants and his spy chief is almost never seen in public. Reaction was also muted around the Arab world, with none of Gaddafi’s many critics weighing in. Amnesty International described the move as a “step towards justice”. The group’s international director of law and policy, Michael Bochenek, said: “The request for arrest warrants is a step forward for international justice and accountability in the region. “However, the international community that came together in such unprecedented agreement to refer Libya to the international criminal court, cannot allow justice to appear selective. By any standard, what is happening in Syria is just as bad as the situation was in Libya when the [UN] security council referred that country to the ICC. “Real international justice has to be for everyone in the Middle East and North Africa.” The few Libyan officials authorised to speak in Tripoli regularly complain that leaders in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen are not held to the same standards as Gaddafi, a figure reviled by his neighbours, Europe and the United States over many years. “Why is this not happening to Syria?” asked one official. “By any measure what they have been proven to have done is far worse than what Gaddafi is alleged to have done. There is a clear double standard. It is beyond a joke.” There seems little chance that Gaddafi will be arrested in coming weeks even if the warrants are issued. The ICC has no police force of its own and relies on officers in member states to enforce arrests. Gaddafi has been lying low over the past fortnight, convinced that Nato is personally targeting him. He appears to maintain a hold on power in the capital, with dissidents maintaining a low profile for now. In the absence of the city falling to rebels, it seems unlikely that members of Gaddafi’s loyalist forces would have the means or motivation to arrest him on behalf of the ICC. Gaddafi’s whereabouts are unknown. However, he is being protected by a special forces unit within the Libyan military that has been dedicated to him for much of the past four decades. Libya Middle East Africa Syria Muammar Gaddafi International criminal court Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
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IMF chief Strauss-Kahn held in New York jail cell after bail denied over alleged rape and other charges against a hotel maid Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, is in a New York prison holding cell after he was refused bail on charges of attempting to rape a hotel maid, as prosecutors said they were looking into reports that he had engaged in a similar attack before. Looking tired and gaunt in a badly-fitting black rain-coat, the unshaven 62-year-old was led into the New York criminal court hearing in handcuffs to face charges over a brutal sexual assault which have left the IMF in disarray and sent shockwaves through French politics, almost certainly ending the presidential hopes of the man tipped as the clear winner against Sarkozy in 2012. Strauss-Kahn’s defence lawyers denied the charges against him, but failed in a bid for $1m bail. “This battle has just begun,” his defence attorney, Benjamin Brafman, told dozens of reporters gathered outside the court. “Mr Strauss-Kahn is innocent of these charges.” After the hearing, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance set out the case against Strauss-Kahn. He is charged with seven crimes, including attempted rape, sexual abuse, forcible touching and unlawful imprisonment, against a 32-year-old hotel maid who had entered his suite at the Sofitel hotel near Times Square at around midday to do the cleaning. Conviction carries a prison sentence of up to 74 years. According to the criminal complaint, Strauss-Kahn shut the door of his hotel room, trapping his alleged victim inside, before grabbing her chest without her consent. John McConnell, an assistant district attorney said: “He sexually assaulted her and attempted to forcibly rape her,” and when that failed, he forced her to perform oral sex. He said the US authorities were now investigating whether Strauss-Kahn “engaged in conduct similar to the conduct alleged in this complaint on at least one other occasion”. Asked to clarify by the judge, McConnell said the incident took place “in Europe”. In France, writer and journalist Tristane Banon was preparing to file a legal complaint relating to an alleged sexual attack in Paris in 2002. Her lawyer, David Koubbi, said: “We’re planning to make a complaint.” Strauss-Kahn did not enter a plea and was remanded to stay in prison until a hearing on Friday after prosecutors argued that the IMF head, who had been detained in the first-class cabin of an Air France jet about to take off for Paris hours after the alleged attack, was a flight risk “like Roman Polanski”. District attorney Daniel Alonso compared Strauss-Kahn to the French-Polish film director who fled the US after having sex with an underage girl and has avoided extradition ever since. Alonso said France had no extradition treaty with the US and Strauss-Kahn was a wealthy man who had been arrested attempting to flee the country. Brafman, who previously successfully defended Michael Jackson against child molestation charges, said it was “quite likely” his client would be “exonerated” and disputed he was trying to flee. Instead, Brafman said his client had a lunch meeting near the hotel and that his lunch partner would be able to testify. He said hotel security found out he was at the airport only after they called him and he told them where he was. He said Strauss-Kahn had been booked on to the Air France flight to Paris for some time. The IMF is holding talks on how to react to the court hearing. Strauss-Kahn’s wife, the millionaire former TV presenter Anne Sinclair, who has declared she believes he is innocent, was expected to fly to New York. She had offered to pay bail. In Paris, the ruling rightwing UMP said the allegations had seriously damaged France’s image abroad. The environment minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, said: “In addition to the presumed victim – the chambermaid – there is another proved victim, that is France. It must be reiterated that these charges are very serious, in France there is a tendency to treat this somewhat lightly.” She brushed aside the growing suggestions among some French politicians that this could be a plot or trap to bring down the 2012 presidential frontrunner. She had “confidence in the American justice system”. She added: “It’s so French to see conspiracies everywhere, it’s something in our culture I think.” Images of Strauss-Kahn with his hands handcuffed behind his back and escorted by police shocked France, where famous figures are usually allowed to leave unseen by underground passageways. The Socialist party leader, Martine Aubry, said the pictures, which dominated all news bulletins, were “profoundly humiliating”. The Socialist MP and Strauss-Kahn supporter Manuel Valls said the images were “of an unbearable cruelty” and were so staggering that “for French political life, there will be a before and an after” this moment. Giving more details of the allegations Strauss-Kahn is to face in France, David Koubbi, Banon’s lawyer, told French radio: “There are a number of elements, facts, which prove what she is saying. So, to the question that some people might legitimately ask – ‘Is she making it up?’ – the answer is no.” Banon had previously made the allegation on TV in 2007 and in an interview with a news website, but had not gone to police. She said on TV she had gone to interview Strauss-Kahn, who had first insisted on holding her hand, then made sexual advances. “It ended really badly. We ended up fighting,” she said. “It finished really violently. We fought on the floor. It wasn’t a case of a couple of slaps. I kicked him, he unhooked my bra, he tried to open my jeans.” She said he had acted like a “rutting chimpanzee”. On radio, Strauss-Kahn’s political ally, Socialist Jean-Marie Le Guen, dismissed the Banon case as ill-founded. Under French law, sexual assault charges must be filed within three years but attempted rape charges can be brought up to 10 years after the alleged attack. Banon did not file charges at the time of the alleged assault after her mother, Anne Mansouret, a local Socialist party councillor and Strauss-Kahn’s friend, persuaded her against it. She says she now regrets that decision. Dominique Strauss-Kahn IMF France Nicolas Sarkozy Dominic Rushe Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Terrence Malick’s much buzzed-about film, The Tree of Life , was screened for critics and reporters at Cannes today to prolonged boos from certain members of the audience. But others countered with enthusiastic applause for the film, which stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn and is only the fifth film Malick…
Continue reading …NBC is renewing Celebrity Apprentice for the 2011-2012 season—so what does that say about Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions? The network isn’t revealing anything it might know, reports the AP . “We’re putting a pin in that for the next 24 hours or so. Things will become clearer soon,” NBC Entertainment’s…
Continue reading …Carlos Santana is not happy with Georgia’s new immigration law —or the Arizona law it’s modeled on, for that matter. “The people of Arizona, and the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” the musician said at yesterday’s annual baseball Civil Rights Game. “This law is not…
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