Ambrosiadou v Coward (Rev 1)

Information about family or private life does not automatically attract protection under article 8. The claimant must have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Information may fall outside article 8 where it is trivial, generalised, anodyne or of slight personal significance.

An interim injunction may protect private information disclosed to third parties because a person with notice of the injunction is bound by it. The remedy should extend only to information for which publication poses a real risk. Hearings should remain public wherever confidentiality can instead be preserved through narrowly tailored reporting restrictions and suitable document preparation.

The claimant sought an interlocutory injunction restraining her estranged husband from publishing documents filed in Greek divorce proceedings or information derived from them. He had supplied a divorce application notice to media organisations. Although parts were ostensibly redacted, readily available software could reveal the concealed material.

Eady J refused to continue an ex parte injunction, holding that the unredacted business material and anodyne personal information attracted no reasonable expectation of privacy. He accepted that much of the redacted material was private but considered that there was no real risk of further publication. The injunction remained effective pending appeal.

The appeal concerned the extent of article 8 protection and whether an injunction was necessary, particularly to protect the parties’ teenage son and to restrain third parties who knew of the order.

1. Appeal allowed to a limited extent. The unredacted material did not contain information in respect of which the claimant or her son had a reasonable expectation of privacy. It concerned business management and disagreements or comprised trivial, generalised and anodyne information about the parties’ personal relationship. Information does not attract article 8 protection merely because it relates to family or private life: paras 27–33.

2. The redacted material stood on a different footing. Much of it concerned matters in respect of which the claimant and the child reasonably expected privacy. Despite copies having been distributed, the information had not become generally accessible and therefore retained its confidential character: para 34.

3. Eady J had been entitled to assess whether there was a real risk of renewed publication by the defendant. Ordinarily, his refusal of relief would have fallen within the permissible exercise of judicial discretion. However, the decision did not adequately address the protection which an injunction would afford against third-party publication under the principle in Attorney-General v Newspaper Publishing Plc [1988] Ch 333. A recipient with notice of the injunction would be restrained from reading and publishing information recoverable from the insecurely redacted notice: paras 35–40.

4. The risk arose from the defendant’s widespread distribution of an ineffectively redacted document. The information concerned the private and family life of a child, had largely remained unpublished, and may have been withheld by media organisations because of the existing injunction. The child’s expressed wish that the matters should remain private reinforced the need for relief: paras 39–42.

5. The injunction was confined to publication of the redacted material, information contained in or derived from it, and the May application notice in any form. It did not extend to other documents from the Greek proceedings because there was no history or threat of their objectionable publication: paras 42–46.

6. The appeal hearing properly remained public. Open justice requires public hearings and free reporting unless justice cannot be done on that basis. Any restriction must be the minimum necessary. Confidentiality could be protected through a focused reporting restriction, temporary private sittings if needed, and documents which isolate confidential material in an identifiable annex: paras 50–54.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was allowed to a limited extent. The court ordered a narrower injunction protecting the redacted private material and preventing further dissemination of the May application notice: [2011] EWCA Civ 409.
2. High Court, Queen’s Bench Division: Eady J refused to continue the interlocutory injunction but stayed its discharge pending appeal: [2010] EWHC 1794 (QB).
3. High Court, Queen’s Bench Division: Maddison J had granted the claimant an ex parte injunction restraining use or publication of documents from the Greek divorce proceedings and information derived from them.