A prominent political blogger yesterday revealed that he has been threatened with prosecution and jail for breaching an injunction to name a cheating celebrity.
He was contacted by the man's lawyers and accused of contempt of court, despite his site being based in Ireland and his internet servers in the US.
The penalty for breaching the injunction is an unlimited fine and a prison sentence.
The political blogger said the celebrity's lawyers in London, Carter Ruck, had sent him a copy of the Court of Appeal injunction and had instructed a Dublin law firm and threatened proceedings in Ireland.
He said Irish citizens were not bound by court orders from England, and said he would 'endeavour to fight' any proceedings in Ireland.
He said of his blog: "There are no physical assets in the UK, there is no digital equivalent of a printing press, no device that can be seized or smashed.
"All the authorities can do is block access to the server, in the same way that China and Iran block access to the truth."
Yesterday the newspaper originally banned from naming the celebrity launched a new legal challenge to try to kill off the privacy injunction.
Lawyers will argue that it has been rendered useless after details of the case were published in newspapers in Scotland, a magazine in the US and worldwide on the internet.
They will tell judges that continuing the injunction - which prevents the identities of the celebrity and his well-known spouse being published in England and Wales - risks bringing the law into disrepute.
The gagging order has been widely criticised by freedom of speech campaigners and Tory MP Philip Davies said it was a 'farce' which was making an 'ass out of the law'.
The row centres on a married man, identified only as PJS, who had a threesome with a couple who then attempted to tell their story in the Sun on Sunday. The man, who has children with his spouse, sought an injunction to stop the tabloid from revealing details of his 'extramarital sexual activities'.
The High Court refused his initial application because his infidelity contradicted his public portrayal of marital commitment. But the Court of Appeal overruled that decision.