Mr Justice Eady has created almost single-handedly what is now a privacy law in Britain through a series of recent rulings that he sees as remedying a “glaring deficiency in our law”.

He was strongly influenced by what he calls the “gross intrusion” in the case of the actor Gorden Kaye who, when recovering from brain surgery in hospital in 1990, was photographed by the Sunday Sport newspaper. The reporter and photographer had disguised themselves as medical staff.

It seemed obvious, he said, that there was “a serious gap in the jurisprudence of any civilised society, if such a gross intrusion could happen without redress”. In recent years, he has had the chance to create that redress through rulings that establish that celebrities have a right to a private life.

He has also earned himself a reputation for being “anti-media”, as with each ruling the freedom of the red-top newspapers to report on the goings-on of the rich or famous has been gradually restricted.

A quietly-spoken, shy and precise figure, Mr Justice Eady is now the most senior libel judge and in charge of the libel lists at the High Court.

As a barrister, David Eady regularly represented newspapers accused of hurting the feelings of celebrities during the 1990s. He acted for The Sun when it was sued by William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow in Coronation Street, and who was upset at being labelled “boring”.

Educated at public school in Brentwood, Essex, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, David Eady was called to the Bar in 1966 and took silk in 1983.

In 1990 he was a member of the Calcutt committee looking at whether there should be a privacy law. He and other lawyers favoured a new law - journalists were against it. It did not happen but he became a High Court judge in 1997 and found himself ruling on defamation cases.

Then the Human Rights Act 1998 took effect in 2000 and the right to privacy under Article 8 was enshrined in domestic law.

Gradually celebrities started to bring cases asserting their rights to privacy. In 2005, in what one lawyer called “a triple whammy against freedom of expression”, Mr Justice Eady awarded £5,000 and an injunction to the singer Loreena McKennitt. This stopped a former friend of the artiste from publishing material about her in a book, on the basis that the author had violated a duty of confidence.

A year later he granted an injunction to a man who had a relationship with another man's wife, stopping the betrayed husband from telling the media about it.

Mr Justice Eady argues that he is simply applying the Act and weighing the rights to privacy against freedom of expression. And last year he ruled in favour of allowing publication of claims that BP resources were used to help the lover of Lord Browne of Madingley, former BP chief executive, to set up a company.

By his own admission his rulings have not made him popular and he has “come in for quite a bit of stick”.

He feels that he has plugged a gap in the law, while critics say that the pendulum is swinging too far in favour of a restrictive view of the media's role. His decision yesterday will only fuel the controversy.

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