Gagging orders allegedly revealed on Twitter

A Twitter user has set up an account claiming to expose celebrities who have obtained injunctions to prevent reporting about their private lives.

The messages on the microblogging site, which can be read by anyone online, were an attempt to get around gagging orders supposedly taken out against the media.

By this morning the user had attracted more than 20,000 followers and the content of the posts was discussed very widely on Twitter. However it was later claimed that the messages apparently contained serious errors.

There is growing disquiet about celebrities' use of injunctions and "super-injunctions" - whose very existence cannot be reported - to prevent publication of details about their private lives.

Prime Minister David Cameron has sounded a warning about the way judges are creating a new law of privacy rather than Parliament.

BBC presenter Andrew Marr revealed last month that he took out a super-injunction in January 2008 to prevent reporting of an affair.

On Thursday, an injunction was granted to a Premier League footballer who apparently wanted to hide an affair with a model from his wife.

A committee examining the use of injunctions to bind the media was set up in April last year by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, and is expected to report later this month.