At that time, reporters risked being in contempt of court themselves if they disclosed that Goodwin was MNB: linking the two identities would have enabled people who had read the judgment published a day earlier to work out what it was that Goodwin was seeking to hide. Later, Goodwin accepted that he could be identified as MNB.

In the judgment he delivered on June 9, Tugendhat explained that the Goodwin case raised the important question of when it might be in the public interest to disclose the fact — though not the details — of a sexual relationship. 

"Newspaper editors have the final decision on what is of interest to the public," he observed. "Judges have the final decision on what it is in the public interest to publish."

VBN had told the court that publication of her name would be a very serious intrusion on her private and family life, the right protected by Article 8 of the human rights convention. She acknowledged that her identity had already been disclosed-presumably on the internet — but it had not become widely known.

But there was little to support her claims: both she and Goodwin chose to put only very limited evidence of their respective family circumstances before the court, fearing that information disclosed in the course of litigation might leak.

This may have been a mistake. The judge said he could do no more than proceed on the basis that Goodwin "did have a relationship with VBN, as alleged by the Sun, that he had not told any of his friends or colleagues at work about it, and that his friends and colleagues would view the relationship with serious disapproval". 

After explaining how the courts were required to balance Article 8 against Article 10 — which protects freedom of expression — Tugendhat said that the right to private life embraced not only access to personal information but also intrusion into someone's personal space — a new and still controversial development in the law. The judge then drew a distinction between the details of a sexual relationship and the fact that one existed. The latter was something that many people were proud to proclaim by, for example, wearing wedding rings or by merely going out together to meet friends.

Although publication of VBN's name was a significant intrusion into her private life from which she was entitled to be protected, information about her job description was "an important feature of the story", the judge concluded. It could be published unless the appeal court ruled otherwise.