Bad news for celebrity seeking Twitterati

At the time it seemed a bit unlikely.

Yesterday’s Mail on Sunday led on a story about a journalist (who cannot be named) being reported to the Attorney General for criminal contempt for naming one of the two footballers (who cannot be named) in a tweet.

Britain’s defamation judges may be out of touch but you’d have thought that even they would have second thoughts about trying to prosecute the 30,000 plus twitterers who now have now flouted their increasingly absurd privacy injunctions.

And today comes an email from the grandly named Judicial Communications Office and a statement from Mr Justice Tugendhat (the judge involved in the case).

In it he says: “I have not received any request to refer to the Attorney General in this case in which the claimant is referred to as TSE, and I have not referred it to him.

“At the hearing on 19th May of the case of TSE and another v News Group Newspapers Ltd counsel for the claimant, Mr Caldecott QC did not make any such request.”

The hearing in question was on Thursday – but when journalists called the Judicial Communications Office yesterday to check the Mail on Sunday they were unable to say if it was true.

But surely you can get in touch with the judge or his clerk to find out? I and others asked. No came the reply. Don’t they have phones or Blackberrys? I’m sorry but we can’t help, they said.

The whole affair illustrates the current disconnect between the judiciary and the rest of modern Britain. While thousands are tweeting the latest developments in the saga as it happens M’Learned Friends take four days to correct a single damaging misconception.

Still it’s bad news for celebrity seeking Twitterati. They will no longer get their day in court.

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• TimonSays

  Only retards are obsessed with the private lives of other people.

  How is anyone better off for hearing about a footballer who has sex with a tart? 

  People should learn the expression ‘mind your own business’. 

  Britain would be a much better place if people focused on the important political issues and problems we face instead of on the trivial garbage vomitted out by the tabloids (and, unfortunately, increasingly the broadsheets too).  The media is dumbing down Britain and most people are only too happy to wallow in the mud instead of rising above it.

  Retards, utter retards …