A billionaire who gagged the Press after he was accused of rape was identified in the US yesterday (file image)
A billionaire who gagged the Press after he was accused of rape was identified in the US yesterday.
The entrepreneur launched an extraordinary legal claim in America, saying he was the victim of an orchestrated smear campaign which had falsely alleged he had ‘paid money to settle a claim for sexual assault in London’.
The man’s lawyers issued a statement confirming he was arrested on suspicion of the sex attack, but the court injunction issued in Britain meant he still could not be named by the Press – despite effectively identifying himself.
Critics said the case highlighted the inadequacies of the British legal system’s use of injunctions in the face of international online publishing.
The 43-year-old businessman was arrested on suspicion of rape in May this year after a 31-year-old woman said she had been attacked in the penthouse suite of an exclusive London hotel, The Ned.
A month later he went to the High Court and successfully argued for an injunction, banning the media in England and Wales from naming him as a rape suspect.
The banning order – which reportedly cost him £100,000 in lawyers’ fees – was made against The Sun newspaper but effectively meant no media outlet in this country could name him.
A few weeks later the City of London Police said the investigation had been dropped and the entrepreneur from San Francisco would face no further action.
But earlier this week, the man filed a legal claim in a court in California against a public relations firm in the US, saying the company had spread lies about him, including rumours he had paid money to settle a sexual assault claim in London.
The firm also claimed he was a Russian government agent and a friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin, he said, and that he ‘had an incident with a prostitute in Europe’.
The company, Definers Public Affairs, has denied the claims and said he was ‘delusional’.
The claims and counter-claims were widely reported in the US yesterday, and the man’s identity was reported.
But the wide-ranging High Court injunction meant he still cannot be named in Britain – the latest in a series of such cases in which the wealthy and powerful have used injunctions to stop them being identified in this country.
Media law expert Geoffrey Robertson QC said the situation was ‘absurd’ and called for the injunction to be lifted.
He told the Daily Telegraph: ‘This injunction should not have been imposed in the first place because how the police handle sex complaints is a matter of public interest.
‘Now that it is a matter of international public interest, thanks to a court action brought publicly in the US by the man who quite absurdly must remain anonymous in England, the injunction should be discharged by the court at no cost to the newspaper, otherwise free speech becomes very expensive.’
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