Gordon Ramsay's father-in-law fails to retain superinjunction

Gordon Ramsay's father-in-law fails to retain superinjunction

Chris Hutcheson can be named in a case involving his family after court of appeal partially lifts privacy order

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay had fallen out with father-in-law Chris Hutcheson last year. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

A superinjunction obtained by the father-in-law of the television chef Gordon Ramsay has been partially lifted by an order of the court of appeal.

Chris Hutcheson failed in an attempt to retain an injunction gagging the press in a case involving his family.

The decision is a further setback to the power of privacy orders to restrict reporting and comes on the day after an MP named Ryan Giggs as the footballer identified on Twitter as having brought an injunction to prevent publication of allegations he had an affair.

Hutcheson can be named after the court partially lifted anonymity over the legal action.

He had appealed against a refusal in December by high court judge Mr Justice Eady to grant him an interim injunction restraining newspapers from publishing "private information".

Hugh Tomlinson QC, for Hutcheson, said the case related to "family issues – conduct which might well be said to be morally blameworthy" but not criminal or regulatory misconduct.

Upholding Justice Eady's decision, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, said: "We consider he was right to dismiss KGM's [ Hutcheson's] application for restraint on publication of certain information."

Tomlinson said Hutcheson's case was that the information he was seeking to keep out of the newspapers was "purely a private matter of concern only to him and a small number of other individuals".

He was "not a public figure, not a premiership footballer" and he did not hold any public office or official position.

Hutcheson and his celebrity chef son-in-law parted company last October in a public falling out.

The Master of the Rolls, sitting with Lord Justice Etherton and Lord Justice Gross, will consider on Wednesday what material from the high court judgment can now be disclosed to the public.

He warned that, until then, details of the judgment must not be published.

But he added that newspapers and the media could use information about the case before then if it came "from an independent source".

The appeal court decision was a victory for the publishers of The Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Mail, which had opposed Hutcheson's application for a gagging order.