Photo blackmail victim wins gagging order

A man being blackmailed over intimate photographs taken of him in private has won a permanent High Court gagging injunction to protect his identity.

Mr Justice Eady granted the gagging order even though there will be no trial after a secret settlement with a woman and her partner.

The man identified only as OPQ applied for the order to protect his human right to privacy in what the judge described as "a straight forward and blatent case of blackmail."

A temporary order was first granted in January and extended in February and made permanent today.

The judge said the order was to restrain the woman identified only as BJM and her partner CJM from publishing confidential information.

She, probably through her partner, was negotiating a financial deal with a newspaper to sell intimate photographs and other information when she owed the claimant a duty of confidence, the court heard.

But someone respresenting the woman later contacted the claimant and tried to do a deal with him instead.

The judge said this was a clear case in which all the parties should remain anonymous to protect the claimant's rights to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

There was also evidence that publicity would adversely effect the health and wellbeing of members of his family, he said.