Hugh Tomlinson

He represented Prince Charles in preventing the publication of the Prince’s Hong Kong travel diaries and claimed that any arguments that the journals should be published in the public interest were "far-fetched". He was the leading barrister in the campaign to force the public release of information relating to MPs' expenses.

Tomlinson is known as a "super injunction" specialist protecting celebrities from the disclosure of "private" information but in accordance with the bar’s taxi rank principle he works on both sides of this legal divide. In the case where England football captain John Terry went to court to protect details of a relationship with Vanessa Perroncel, (the ex-girlfriend of his England team-mate Wayne Bridge) Tomlinson represented Associated Newspapers (not Terry, as is often wrongly reported). He also represented Jeremy Clarkson’s ex-wife Alex Hall where Clarkson was seeking (but subsequently dropped) efforts to prevent Hall from claiming that they had had an affair during his subsequent marriage. In Ntuli v Donald he again acted for the Defendant, Ntuli, a former partner of "Take That’s" Howard Donald, who had obtained a "super-injunction" to prevent her revealing details of their relationship (and preventing the reporting of the existence of the injunction itself). This was the first appeal against a "super-injunction". It was removed by the Court of Appeal who allowed the proceedings to be reported and Donald and Ntuli to be named. Tomlinson successfully represented the publisher Harper Collins when the BBC sought to prevent a publication revealing the identity of Top Gear’s secret racing-driver, The Stig.

"Britain’s leading privacy QC, Hugh Tomlinson, declared, in words that should chill all of us, the following..... "The law of privacy has come a long way in a short time ... We are gradually moving from a position where anything could be published unless it was forbidden to the opposite – nothing can be published unless it can be justified. Under the influence of the Human Rights case law from Strasbourg, we are moving slowly but inescapably towards the stricter privacy protection of French or Italian law."

Tomlinson represented the pianist James Rhodes in his successful 2015 appeal to the Supreme Court which led to the overturning of an injunction to prevent the publication of his autobiography, Instrumental. In 2017, Tomlinson represented the entertainer Michael Barrymore in his successful claim for wrongful arrest against the Essex Police.

In 2014 Tomlinson represented Amnesty International in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in a case in which the Security Services were forced to concede that their arrangements for dealing with legally privileged material were unlawful and accepted that Amnesty’s communications had been illegally intercepted. He acted for Amnesty International in its subsequent challenge to the legality of the bulk interception of communications by UK intelligence agencies in the European Court of Human Rights.

Tomllnson is a founder member and the Chair of Hacked Off, the campaign for a free and accountable press. This was set up to campaign for a public inquiry into the phone hacking scandal. Shortly afterwards the Leveson Inquiry was set up. Tomlinson gave evidence to the inquiry and a number of his proposals were accepted by the inquiry. Hacked Off supported victims of press abuse who gave evidence and has, since 2011, campaigned for the implementation of Leveson Inquiry recommendations.

The new law of privacy has not been popular with newspaper editors. In a 2008 speech to the Society of Editors, the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre said

In 2007 Tomlinson successfully represented Lord Baker a former Environment Secretary in a Freedom of Information request against John Prescott, the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The Information Tribunal ruled that civil servants' advice to ministers on major planning decisions should be disclosed to anyone who asks for it once the decision is taken.

In 2000 he became a founder member of Matrix Chambers. Other founding members included Cherie Booth QC, Lord Brennan QC, James Crawford SC, Professor Conor Gearty, Ben Emmerson QC, Lord Ken Macdonald QC, Clare Montgomery QC, Helen Mountfield QC, Tim Owen QC and Philippe Sands QC

In 1984 he joined New Court Chambers and according to Carman’s biographer, Dominic Carman, Tomlinson "made a deep impression" on George Carman who was then head of chambers. Carman regarded him as his star performer, insisting that he become his junior in the two Branson defamation cases - the British Airways "dirty tricks" campaign against Virgin Atlantic, and the case involving an alleged attempt to bribe Richard Branson by the head of the lottery company GTECH S.p.A..

Tomlinson was born and grew up in a working-class area of Woodhouse in Leeds, West Yorkshire. After winning a place at Leeds Grammar School he went on to Balliol College, Oxford where he earned the top first in the University in PPE. After Oxford he continued his philosophical studies at the University of Sussex and in 1977 went to the University of Paris VIII, at the time notorious for its radical philosophy department. Tomlinson met the philosopher Gilles Deleuze there and went on to translate eight of his books.

Hugh Richard Edward Tomlinson QC (born January 1954 in Leeds) is an English barrister, a prominent English translator of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and a founding member of Matrix Chambers. He is a noted specialist in media and information law including defamation, confidence, privacy and data protection. He played a central role in the litigation that sought the full disclosure of UK MP's parliamentary expenses and in the News of the World phone-hacking case. He is known for his privacy work for celebrities who have included Lily Allen, David and Victoria Beckham, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Ryan Giggs, as well as others such as retired banker (and ex-knight) Fred Goodwin and Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. He is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.