| The Honourable Sir David Eady |
|
|---|---|
| High Court Judge of the Queen's Bench Division | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 24 April 1997 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 March 1943 |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Judge |
Sir David Eady (born 24 March 1943), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Eady, in legal writing Eady J, is a High Court judge in England and Wales. As a judge (since 1997) he is known for having presided over many high-profile libel and privacy cases.
He was called to the bar in 1966 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1983. He was a member of One Brick Court chambers and, as a lawyer, he specialised in media law until appointed a High Court Judge, Queen's Bench division, on 21 April 1997.
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Eady was educated at the Brentwood School, Essex, and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge.[1][2]
Eady was a member of One Brick Court chambers, "a legal chambers known for its libel work,"[1] and specialised in media law. The Daily Telegraph described him as "a leading courtroom defender of red-top journalism, much in demand as a barrister who could be relied on to uphold the freedom of the tabloids to expose the private lives of public figures."[3]
Examples include Eady's defence of The Sun when the Coronation Street actor Bill Roache sued over taunts that he was "boring".[3] He also represented Singapore politician Lee Kuan Yew in his libel suits against the late opposition politician Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam.[4] Eady was unsuccessful in 1984 when he represented Derek Jameson in an action against the BBC over a critical profile of Jameson on Radio 4's Week Ending (broadcast on 22 March 1980). Eady had advised his instructing solicitor Peter Carter-Ruck that the case was "high risk" but the letter had not been passed on to Jameson.[5] In the late 1980s Eady was appointed to the Calcutt Committee presided over by David Calcutt, which considered how to police the media.[1]
As a judge (since 1997) he is known for having judged many high-profile libel cases; Quentin Letts called him "the High Court's favourite libel judge".[1] According to The Times, Eady "has delivered a series of rulings that have bolstered privacy laws and encouraged libel tourism."[6] One commentator said that "he has interpreted the European Convention on Human Rights in a restrictive way. In effect he is developing a privacy law."[7] He has also been repeatedly criticised by Private Eye on similar grounds.
Eady is, according to the Daily Telegraph, "something of an enigma to his colleagues. He has a reputation for being distant and sometimes difficult in court, but can be immensely charming off duty."[3] In April 2008, The Times commented: "He may be just one of more than 100 High Court judges but Sir David Eady is nonetheless arguably more influential than any of his colleagues. Almost single-handedly he is creating new privacy law."[8]
Eady has cited the failure of actor Gorden Kaye to obtain legal remedies for invasion of privacy in Kaye v Robertson as one of his concerns, saying that there was: "a serious gap in the jurisprudence of any civilised society, if such a gross intrusion could happen without redress."[9] In an interview with Joshua Rozenberg in June 2011, Eady explained that courts assessing issues related to privacy must apply the test used in Von Hannover v Germany (2004),[10] where the decisive factor is whether publication contributes to “a debate of general interest to society”.[11]
In 2003 Eady presided over Alexander Vassiliev vs Frank Cass and Amazon.com.
In December 2004 Eady ruled in favor of MP George Galloway after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on documents found by journalist David Blair in Baghdad. The documents appeared to show that Galloway had received money from Saddam Hussein's regime. In its defence, the newspaper did not attempt to claim justification, seeking to prove the truth of the defamatory reports. Instead, the paper sought to argue the public interest defence established in Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd.[12] However Eady did not accept this defence saying the suggestion that Galloway was guilty of "treason", "in Saddam's pay", and being "Saddam's little helper" caused him to conclude "the newspaper was not neutral but both embraced the allegations with relish and fervour and went on to embellish them".[13] Additionally Galloway had not been given a fair or reasonable opportunity to make inquiries or meaningful comment upon the documents before they were published.[14]
In 2005 Eady prevented author Niema Ash from revealing certain details about singer Loreena McKennitt, on the grounds that they would violate her right to privacy as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, and furthermore that, as McKennitt's friend, Ash owed the singer a duty of confidence.[7]
In December 2006 Eady granted an order to "[a] prominent figure in the sports world who had had an affair with another man's wife", preventing the betrayed husband from naming him in the media.[7]
In the 2006 case of Jameel v Wall Street Journal Europe Eady ruled in favor of the plaintiff, a Saudi Arabian banker. The Wall Street Journal had listed Jameel among several Saudi businessmen who were allegedly being monitored for support of terrorism. In 2009 the Law Lords overturned Eady's ruling, with Lord Hoffman accusing Mr Justice Eady of being "hostile to the spirit of Reynolds", a reference to the public interest defence established in Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd.[7]
Mr Justice Eady entered a default judgment in favour of Khalid bin Mahfouz in his "libel tourism" case against American scholar Rachel Ehrenfeld for documenting his alleged financial support of terrorism in Funding Evil. On 1 May 2008, in reaction to this case, the New York State Legislature passed a law that "offers New Yorkers greater protection against libel judgments in countries whose laws are inconsistent with the freedom of speech granted by the United States Constitution.".[15]
In 2008, Eady presided over Max Mosley v News Group Newspapers Limited,[16] awarding Max Mosley damages of 60,000 pounds for invasion of privacy after the News of the World exposed his participation in a sado-masochistic orgy.
In 2009, Mr. Justice Eady issued a judgment that Google was not liable for defamatory content accessible through or cached by Google search.[17]
In June 2009, Eady ruled that Richard Horton, a detective constable who wrote an anonymous blog called "NightJack" could be named, as he had "no reasonable expectation of privacy". The blog was described as a "behind-the-scenes commentary on policing".[18]
That same year, Eady ruled in a judgement in a libel case by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) against Simon Singh. Singh had called the BCA's claims that spinal manipulation could cure children with colic, ear infections, asthma, sleeping and feeding conditions, and prolonged crying "bogus". Eady ruled that this meant deliberately false, meaning Singh would have to prove that the BCA's members were being deliberately deceitful, not merely making a false or unsupported claim.[19] Singh filed an appeal against this ruling.[19][20] In April 2010, Singh won his appeal, the ruling saying Eady had "erred in his approach", and was inviting the court "to become an Orwellian ministry of truth".[21]
Mr Justice Eady has also given judgment in a number of high profile media trials involving among others Madonna,[22] Josh Hartnett,[23] Marco Pierre White,[24] Sara Keays,[25] Roger Alton, Carol Sarler[26] and Sienna Miller.[27]
In April and May 2011, Eady was the judge in CTB v News Group Newspapers. The case involved an anonymous Premier League footballer (CTB), who had been involved in an alleged extra-marital relationship with Imogen Thomas. Tweets and media coverage in the Scottish press named the footballer as Ryan Giggs.[28] On 23 May 2011, Eady upheld the injunction in the High Court. Later the same day, MP John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to name Ryan Giggs in the House of Commons, effectively ending the injunction. On 15 December 2011, Eady accepted that Thomas had not attempted to blackmail the footballer known as CTB, and suggested "There is no longer any point in maintaining the anonymity." The injunction preventing the naming of CTB remained in place.[29]
Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has been particularly critical of Eady. In a November 2008 article he accused the judge of "arrogant and amoral judgments", and went on to complain that
| “ | [W]hile London boasts scores of eminent judges, one man is given a virtual monopoly of all cases against the media, enabling him to bring in a privacy law by the back door. The freedom of the press is far too important to be left to the somewhat desiccated values of a single judge who clearly has an animus against the popular press and the right of people to freedom of expression[30] | ” |
Dacre was also particularly critical of Eady's ruling in the Max Mosley case, describing it as a frightening example of what "one judge with a subjective and highly relativist moral sense can do ... with a stroke of his pen".[31][32] The Daily Mail also accused Eady of "moral and social nihilism" and "arrogance".[31] According to unnamed "friends" of Eady cited in The Guardian, Eady has been "profoundly hurt" by these attacks.[31]
Eady was repeatedly rebuked by the Court of Appeal for his conduct during the 2009 libel case Desmond v. Bower. Eady disallowed several pieces of evidence against Desmond which the Appeal Court ruled were clearly relevant to the case. The Court of Appeal judges ruled that Eady's decision was "plainly wrong" and "might lead to a miscarriage of justice".[33] After hearing the evidence, the jury found in favour of Mr Bower.
In December 2009, Eady commented in The Guardian on some of this criticism, saying that "The media have nowhere to vent their frustrations other than through personal abuse of the particular judge who happens to have made the decision". He added that he does not see libel tourism as a problem: "I believe the suggestion is that there is a large queue of people, loosely classified as 'foreigners', waiting to clog up our courts with libel actions that are without merit and which have nothing to do with our jurisdiction ... [This] is not a phenomenon we actually come across in our daily lives."[31]
On 10 December 2009, Eady granted Tiger Woods an injunction preventing the UK media from publishing further revelations about his private life. Reacting to this, media lawyer Mark Stephens said "This injunction would never have been granted in America....It's unbelievable that Tiger Woods' lawyers have been able to injunct the UK press from reporting information here."[34] Foreign media including The Irish Times ignored the terms of the UK injunction and published its details.[35]
In April 2011, Eady faced press criticism following a case in which he granted a restraining order "contra mundum" in OPQ v BJM, creating a worldwide (according to English law) and permanent ban on publication of details about a man's private life, which involved an actor who had allegedly paid a prostitute. At a previous hearing on 2 February 2011, Eady had described the matter as "a straightforward and blatant blackmail case".[36][37]