UK & World News: Revealed: Judge granted famous footballer anonymity ... - Scottish Daily Record

May 17 2011 By Chris Musson

A JUDGE feared Big Brother's Imogen Thomas tried to blackmail the Premier League player she had an affair with.

Mr Justice Eady had granted the super-injunction banning the Welsh beauty from naming the footballer.

The star said Imogen asked for s100,000 to keep quiet. He agreed to give her a signed football shirt and match tickets during secret meetings at hotels, it was claimed yesterday.

Mr Justice Eady said he believed Imogen had set her lover up by being photographed after meeting him at a hotel.

Imogen, 28, last night accused the judge of unfairly gagging her.

She said outside court: "I've read the judgment and am stunned by how I'm portrayed.

"Yet again, my name and my reputation are being trashed while the man I had a relationship with is able to hide.

"What's more, I can't even defend myself because I've been gagged.

"Where's the fairness in this? What about my reputation?

"If this is the way privacy injunctions are supposed to work, there's something seriously wrong with the law."

At the High Court in London yesterday, Mr Justice Eady issued a written account of his reasons for temporarily banning reporting of the affair last month.

He listened to arguments from lawyers representing the footballer, Imogen and a tabloid newspaper at a private hearing.

The judge said the footballer was married with a family and the court had to consider his privacy rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

He told how lawyers became involved after a story about the fling appeared in the newspaper on April 14. The player was not named in the story.

Mr Justice Eady said lawyers for the star applied for a temporary injunction after learning that Imogen had hired publicist Max Clifford.

The star made a statement saying he met Thomas last September and on two further occasions in November and December. He claimed Imogen had texted him in March and that he thought she planned to sell her stor y.

Mr Justice Eady said: "She told him by this means that she wanted, or 'needed', a payment from him of s50,000.

"It was against this background that he agreed (he says with some reluctance) to meet her in a hotel where he was staying in early April of this year to discuss her demands."

The player claimed they were together for no more than 30 minutes and that he agreed to provide her with a signed football shirt.

But he insisted he was not prepared to pay her s50,000.

He said he agreed to meet her a second time at a hotel and provided her with football tickets.

Mr Justice Eady said it seemed the footballer "may well have been set up" so photographs could be taken of Imogen going to hotels.

The Premier League star had started to "smell a rat" but sent Imogen a message "to convey that he might be willing to pay her some money after all".

The judge added: "By this time, however, she made it clear that she was looking for s100,000.

"She later texted him to say there was a journalist outside her house.

"The evidence before the court at that point, therefore, appeared to strongly suggest that the (footballer) was being blackmailed (although that is not how he put it himself).

"I hasten to add, as is obvious, that I cannot come to any final conclusion about it at this stage."

The footballer claimed that, on April 13, Imogen told him the newspaper was thinking of publishing a story that they had an affair for six months - with photos of her near hotels.

Mr Justice Eady said the newspaper seemed to be "ready to take advantage of these prearranged meetings".

The judge added: "This is no doubt to give the impression, which Ms Thomas herself may have fostered, that a sexual liaison between them was still continuing ... in April."

The judge added: "It seemed to me that the (footballer) was fully entitled to the protection of anonymity."

David Price, Imogen's lawyer, told the court she denied "causing the publication" in the newspaper or "asking the (footballer) for money".