• Premier League

MP names injunction footballer Ryan Giggs

Ryan Giggs has been unmasked by John Hemming MP © PA Photos

Enlarge

Related Links

• News: Beckham getting 'goose bumps' ahead of Old Trafford return
  
• News: Van der Sar reveals 'second thoughts' about retirement
  
• News: Zamora named in England squad for Switzerland
  

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming has used parliamentary privilege to identify the footballer at the centre of an injunction row as Manchester United midfielder Ryan Giggs.

Newspapers in England have been fighting a gagging order for weeks, which has banned the naming of the sportsman who is alleged to have had a relationship with former Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas.

But just minutes after the High Court refused to lift the ban, Mr Hemming - who has been campaigning against the use of injunctions and super-injunctions - named Giggs in the House of Commons.

Mr Hemming said it was not practical to imprison the numerous Twitter users who have already named the player.

"With about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all," Mr Hemming said in the House of Commons.

Speaker John Bercow interrupted the Birmingham Yardley MP, telling him that "the occasion for raising the issues of principle involved not seeking to flout for whatever purpose".

Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald printed a picture of Giggs on their front page a day earlier, with his eyes blacked out with a bar on which "censored" was written.

The newspaper said it was "unsustainable" for newspapers to be banned from printing information that was readily available on the internet.

It said: "We should point out immediately that we are not accusing the footballer concerned of any misdeed. Whether the allegations against him are true or not has no relevance to this debate.

"The issue is one of freedom of information and of a growing argument in favour of more restrictive privacy laws."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.