Ryan Giggs named by MP as injunction footballerhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13503847A married footballer named on Twitter as having an injunction over an alleged affair with a reality TV star has been identified in Parliament as Ryan Giggs.
Lib Dem MP John Hemming named the player during an urgent Commons question on privacy orders.
Using parliamentary privilege to break the court order, he said it would not be practical to imprison the 75,000 Twitter users who had named the player.
Earlier the High Court again ruled that the injunction should not be lifted.
The player, whose injunction says he can only be identified as CTB, obtained the order against ex-Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas, who is a former Miss Wales, and the Sun newspaper.
Parliamentary privilege protects MPs and peers from prosecution for statements made in the House of Commons or House of Lords.
Addressing MPs, Mr Hemming said: "Mr Speaker, with about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all."
House of Commons speaker John Bercow interrupted the MP saying: "Let me just say to the honourable gentleman, I know he's already done it, but occasions such as this are occasions for raising the issues of principle involved, not seeking to flout for whatever purpose."
'Protect family'
In court, Mr Justice Eady rejected a fresh application by Sun publisher News Group Newspapers to discharge the privacy injunction.
The judge said: "The court's duty remains to try and protect the claimant, and particularly his family, from intrusion and harassment so long as it can."
On Sunday, a Scottish paper named Mr Giggs as being the footballer identified on Twitter.
The Attorney General Dominic Grieve told the Commons the prime minister had asked for a joint committee of peers and MPs to investigate the use of privacy orders.
David Cameron has written a letter to John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture committee, recommending the setting up of a new body.
Earlier he told ITV1's Daybreak that banning newspapers from naming such stars while the information was widely available on the internet was both "unsustainable" and "unfair".
Mr Whittingdale told the Commons developments in this area were "moving very rapidly".
"You virtually need to be living in an igloo not to know the identity of at least one of the premiership footballers.
"We are in danger of making the law look like an ass."
The footballer's lawyers had previously obtained a High Court order asking Twitter to reveal details of users who had revealed his identity after thousands named him.
'Attention-seeking'
John Hemming later told the BBC why he had named Mr Giggs.
"Basically when he... showed that he was going to go after relatively normal people and try and prosecute them, for gossiping about him on a matter of trivia, I think he has to be held to account for that," he said.
But Alastair Campbell, Labour's former director of communications said it was the action of an "attention-seeking" MP.
He told the BBC: "[There] are a lot of self-serving voices coming on, those that are involved in newspapers, those that are involved in people trying to get this story out.
"And frankly I think we have to start differentiating between the public interest, and a proper definition of what that means, and stories that the media decide the public people might be interested in... it's not the same thing."
In another case brought by a separate footballer, known to the court as TSE, a High Court judge ruled on Monday that comments on Twitter about the private life of a famous person did not mean there should be no injunction preventing newspapers from publishing stories about him.
Midfielder Ryan Giggs, 37, is Manchester United's most senior player, having appeared in 613 games.
He celebrated with the team at Old Trafford on Sunday as they lifted the Premier League trophy for a record 19th time, and is expected to be in the squad to face Barcelona in Saturday's European Champions League final at Wembley.
The player, who made 64 appearances for Wales before retiring from international football in 2007, was awarded an OBE that year.
He was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2009.
