Lord Sugar Ordered To Remove Provocative Tweet

Lord Alan Sugar, entrepreneur and lead judge on BBC television show the Apprentice, was ordered to remove a Twitter update, after a judge said it could unfairly influence jurors in an MP’s expenses trial.

Sugar posted the message on the micro-blogging site on the second day of the trial of Lord Taylor in January. The tweet speculated on whether Taylor would escape charges because he was a member of the Conservative party.

“Lord Taylor, Tory peer, in court over alleged expenses fiddle,” wrote Sugar. “Wonder if he will get off as he is a Tory compared to Labour MP who was sent to jail.”

Deleted immediately

The Labour MP referred to was David Chaytor, who pleaded guilty to expenses fraud in December and became the first member of parliament to be imprisoned for his offences. Sugar was ordered to delete the post, which he reportedly did immediately.

Although the incident occurred in January, legal restrictions prevented the media from reporting it at the time. These restrictions were lifted on Thursday following the conviction of ex-Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield – the last of the expenses trials.

A spokesman for Lord Sugar said that the tycoon had been away in America at the time, and was not familiar with the restrictions in the case. “As soon as he was, it was taken down,” he said.

Twitter and the law

The news comes amid ongoing debate about whether social networks should be subject to certain legal restrictions, after a Twitter user flouted privacy laws by tweeting a list of celebrities who took out super-injunctions. This was followed by thousands of Twitter users tweeting the name of married premiership footballer Ryan Giggs, after he was found to have taken out a super-injuntion.

The company announced yesterday that it would be prepared to hand over the details of users that broke the injuctions, if legally required to do so. “To the extent that we can, we want to notify the user involved, let them know and let them exercise their rights under their own jurisdiction,” said Twitter’s newly appointed general manager of European operations, Tony Wang.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter have themselves been hit with an injunction order that prevents them publishing damaging information online. The injunction effectively bans the social networks from revealing the identity of a mother who is seeking to withdraw life support from her brain-damaged daughter.

In December 2010, the Lord Chief Justice has given journalists the green light to use Twitter during court proceedings, as long as their tweets do not interfere with the judicial process.