DOUBLES JEOPARDY
Super injunctions can’t guarantee super-rich secrecy anymore... as our tennis club encounter proves
NORMALLY never one to shy away from a camera, Sir Philip Green was decidedly bashful when I found him at his US bolthole this week.
The Topshop tycoon had been laying low at his Arizona mansion after being accused of sexual and racial harassment by employees – accusations he denies.
After spending, what to him is pocket change on a high court injunction to prevent the claims being made public, Lord Peter Hain used Parliamentary privilege to reveal the businessman’s identity. It proves the old adage “everything hidden is meant to be revealed, and everything concealed is meant to be brought to light”.
Just ask Donald Trump. Between him and Green,
the billionaires have allegedly spent a fortune on hush deals.
The use of archaic injunctions by the rich and famous in the UK to cover any act deemed wrong are no longer worth the paper they are written on. Before Lord Hain’s speech, three US publications I spoke to were poised to reveal Green as the accused businessman.
They would have been immune to any action a UK court could bring.
This case shows we have an analogue justice system in a digital age. Newspapers are gagged by the laws stuck in Dickensian times but the internet is free to expose whoever it likes. The laws need to change.
When it comes to the likes of Green and Trump, it seems they cannot help themselves.
But they do say “a fool and his money are soon parted”.