The applicant blogger applied for an interim injunction to stop the respondent newspaper from publishing any information that would or could lead to his identity being revealed to the public.

The applicant was a detective constable who wrote in his blog about his police work and what he thought about social and political issues surrounding the police and the administration of justice. One of the reasons why the applicant wished to remain anonymous was because of a significant risk of disciplinary action if his employer (the police authority) found out that he was disclosing information to the public about how police operations were being conducted. This behaviour was restricted by Police (Conduct) Regulations. However, the respondents had managed to discover the identity of the blogger by a process of deduction and investigation – mostly by using information available on the Internet. Therefore, the applicant argued that his anonymity should be maintained, since he had a reasonable expectation of privacy for his identity as the author of the blog, and because there was no countervailing public interest which justified its publication.

The application for an interim injunction based on Article 8 of the ECHR 1950 was refused. The court held that the applicant had not been able to demonstrate sufficiently that he had a legally enforceable right to stay anonymous. The court considered previous cases where the claimant had been able to successfully restrain publication of private information – in the absence of a breach of confidence. In such cases, the information in question had mostly been of a strictly personal nature – such as mental or physical health, sexual relationships, and the claimant’s family or domestic arrangements. However, in this case, the court held that the applicant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy over the information being published in his blog, since blogging is a public activity. Furthermore, the court also felt that there was significant public interest in the applicant’s identity being revealed. The respondents, who had successfully managed to discover his identity despite his own attempts to hide it, should be allowed to reveal it. Thus, on balancing the applicant’s right to privacy and the respondent’s freedom of expression, the court held that the latter outweighed the former.