Alex Reid obtains interim injunction preventing Katie Price disclosing his "private and confidential information"
On Friday 18 May 2018 Mr Reid, represented by 5RB’s Chloe Strong, was granted an interim injunction at the High Court by Mr Justice Jay. Mr Reid is suing Ms Price for misuse of private information, breach of confidence, breach of contract and breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 in respect of private and confidential sexual information obtained and disclosed by her. The injunction application was heard in open court and Jay J gave a detailed ex-tempore judgment.
The parties were briefly married from 2010 to 2012 during which time the private and confidential material was generated. Mr Reid claimed that Ms Price has processed and disclosed the material on various occasions and that he did not consent to the obtaining or the disclosure of the information in question. Contractual undertakings were signed by the parties in 2011 in which Ms Price acknowledged that she had in her possession video footage of Mr Reid engaging in sexual activity.
Ms Price defended the application, producing a detailed witness statement in support, in which she claimed she no longer had the videos in question and had not had them for some considerable time, alleging they had been stored on a computer that was stolen some years ago. Jay J stated he was “frankly not impressed” by most of Ms Price’s evidence.
The application turned on the events of 9 January 2018 at a filming of Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side. Whilst Ms Price accepted she had told the show’s audience members she had a video of Mr Reid, she denied she showed the private and confidential material to them.
After considering the evidence produced by the parties, which included witness statements supporting Mr Reid’s claims that were produced by four separate individuals who were in attendance on the evening of 9 January, the Judge concluded there was a “real risk” that Ms Price would republish the private and confidential material.
The Judge held that Mr Reid’s Article 8 ECHR rights were “very significantly engaged”, whilst the competing Article 10 ECHR rights were only “weak” by comparison. He explained: “Although Mr Reid had placed aspects of his private life in the public domain he has never done so in relation to these particular matters”.
Commenting on the likely truth of Ms Price’s claim that what she showed on the evening of 9 January was in fact something she downloaded off the internet, the Judge said: “that account could I suppose be true, but I very strongly doubt it”. He said another relevant factor was that: “contrary to [Ms Price’s] protestations, there are indications of what she has uttered in the public domain which are consistent with a threatening and vindictive attitude”.
Whilst the Judge acknowledged there had been some “modest delay” in obtaining the witness evidence relating to the events of 9 January, he rejected the contention that any delay in this case was sufficient to disentitle Mr Reid to the injunction sought.
No further hearings have yet been fixed.
Chloe Strong was instructed by Sanders Witherspoon LLP.
Click here for coverage of the case in the national press.