Book by well-known performing artist who cannot be named is based on his own experiences of childhood sexual abuse

A British performing artist has been forced to shelve a book based on his experiences of childhood sexual abuse after his ex-wife obtained an injunction to prevent their young son from reading it.

In a case that is alarming freedom of speech campaigners and which publishers say is deeply disturbing, the court of appeal has ordered that the artist cannot publish key sections of the book until the issue has been decided at trial.

The artist, who is well known in his field, says his right to freedom of speech is particularly acute because he was a victim of such serious abuse, and because his book is intended to encourage other victims to come forward.

“Imagine someone from Rotherham being told they can’t come forward and talk about what happened to them as a result of legal action,” he said.

However, his ex-wife’s lawyers dispute claims that the case could set a precedent undermining the rights of other authors, arguing that it is concerned only with the rights of one child, who has a number of health problems, who they say would suffer catastrophic psychological distress were he to read parts of his father’s work.

What is not in dispute is that the case hinges on an obscure piece of Victorian case law, known as Wilkinson v Downton, in which a man who played a practical joke on an east London pub landlady in 1897 was found to be guilty of the “intentional infliction of mental distress”.

The details of the case are shrouded in such extensive secrecy that the artist can be identified only as MLA, his exact form of performance cannot be described and his publishers can be named only as STL. His son, whose age cannot be published – other than to say that he is “approaching his teenage years” – can be named only as OPO. The boy’s mother can be identified only as BHM.

She moved away from the UK after the couple’s divorce in 2009, and is living in a country that the court described in a judgment handed down on Thursday as “Ruritania”, in order to conceal details of her identity. The boy was described in the judgment as having “dual British and Ruritanian nationality”.

Describing the author and his book, a semi-autobiographical work, Lady Justice Arden said: “He has obtained a high degree of distinction in his chosen career despite having had a tormented childhood. When he was still very young, he was for many years the subject of sexual abuse, not at home but at school. He was traumatised by this, as well as suffering physically, and it has led him to have episodes of severe mental illness, and to have got a thrill out of self-harm.

“He has found a means through his art of coping with the trauma and the past. In the work, he provides new perspectives on the subject of his professional work, with also descriptions of the past abuse and illnesses he suffered as a result. It is striking prose.”

After a copy of the manuscript was leaked to BHM, she brought proceedings on behalf of her son, who has Asperger syndrome, attention deficit disorder and a number of other health problems. BHM says that on divorce, she and her ex-husband agreed to a court order that requires them to attempt to prevent their child from discovering information about their past lives “which would have a detrimental effect on the child’s wellbeing”.

The court rejected BHM’s claims that publication of the book in full would amount to negligence, on the grounds that it would be “wholly inappropriate” for parents to be liable for damages over parenting decisions that they must make each day, and also rejected her claim that publication would be a “misuse of private information”, because the information contained within the passages was about MLA, and not about his son.

While accepting that there was a public interest in the book being published, the court granted a temporary injunction and ruled that the question of whether the boy’s rights should take priority over those of his father should be decided at a full trial.

MLA’s solicitor, Tamsin Allen, said the decision threatened to extend privacy law by the back door, and added: “There are really serious implications for freedom of speech for people who want to write about subjects like this.”

However, Susan Aslan, representing both OPO and his mother, said: “This is a very specific case which turns on its specific and unusual facts. These relate to a vulnerable child and his father, who has in the past recognised the need to protect his son from his own past history.”

Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, which works to defend the rights of writers, said: “This sets a worrying precedent for injuncting memoirs or any non-fiction that may expose or investigate the past, whether personal or political. It would allow anyone to cite the distress of a relative or friend as grounds for censorship.”

Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the campaign group Index on Censorship, said: “This case has worrying implications for freedom of expression, the boundaries of which are being eroded by a creeping extension of privacy concerns in the UK and elsewhere.”