The supreme court overturned that ruling on Wednesday after hearing an appeal from Rhodes. Delivering the judgment, Lord Toulson said: “Freedom to report the truth is a basic right to which the court gives a high level of protection and the author’s right to his story includes the right to tell it as he wishes.

“There is every justification for the publication. A person who has suffered in the way the appellant has suffered, and has struggled to cope with the consequences of his suffering in the way that he has struggled, has the right to tell the world about it. And there is the corresponding public interest in others being able to listen to his life story in all its searing detail.”