Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Ex-wife of well-known performer obtains injunction against book to protect son

Book by well-known performing artist who cannot be named is based on his own experiences of childhood sexual abuse

Royal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
A British performing artist has been forced to shelve a book based on his experiences of childhood sexual abuse after his ex-wife obtained an injunction to prevent their young son from reading it.
In a case that is alarming freedom of speech campaigners and which publishers say is deeply disturbing, the court of appeal has ordered that the artist cannot publish key sections of the book until the issue has been decided at trial.

The artist, who is well known in his field, says his right to freedom of speech is particularly acute because he was a victim of such serious abuse, and because his book is intended to encourage other victims to come forward.

“Imagine someone from Rotherham being told they can’t come forward and talk about what happened to them as a result of legal action,” he said.
However, his ex-wife’s lawyers dispute claims that the case could set a precedent undermining the rights of other authors, arguing that it is concerned only with the rights of one child, who has a number of health problems, who they say would suffer catastrophic psychological distress were he to read parts of his father’s work.

What is not in dispute is that the case hinges on an obscure piece of Victorian case law, known as Wilkinson v Downton, in which a man who played a practical joke on an east London pub landlady in 1897 was found to be guilty of the “intentional infliction of mental distress”.
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