"Judges who keep making these rulings are completely out of touch with what is right. They need to get real with the modern world.

"I don't think celebrities who use the media to secure positive media coverage when it suits them should be able to use the law of the land to prevent coverage they do not like."

He added: "Someone in the northern parts of England who is banned from knowing this information could walk to Scotland and read it in the newspapers there - it's an absolute mockery."

John Hemming, the former Liberal Democrat backbencher who publicly identified footballer Ryan Giggs in the House of Commons in connection with a 2011 injunction, has called on Parliament to look again at the law.

"It's absurd trying to hold back the flow of information in the digital age by using a court order that can only go as far as Hadrian's Wall," he said.