Caroline Spelman facing six-figure legal bill over bid to stop press printing story about son Mrs Spelman had been away in Nairobi and Mr Spelman, a management consultant, in Canada and had not yet had a chance to discuss the judge's decision. The couple are acting as "litigation friends" to their son in his case. In a public judgment giving his reasons for the ruling, the judge did not spell out the nature of the claims about the teenager, who is a pupil at £10,000-a-year Tonbridge School in Kent. But he described how Jonathan Spelman had played rugby for Harlequins and England under-16s on a number of occasions and said: "His youth, and his success in public sport, are two of the most important facts at the heart of the case. He has not played rugby since he suffered an injury during a game he played in September 2011. It is events following that injury that give rise to this claim for an injunction to restrain disclosure of what is said to be private information. Earlier this month, a journalist on the Daily Star Sunday had received a tip-off about Jonathan, which he was later told by a solicitor for the teenager was inaccurate. He then received further information, which lawyers for the schoolboy claim is "private and confidential" but which he has "not disputed." A temporary injunction was granted by Mr Justice Lindblom to prevent the newspaper from running the story. In a further hearing the editor, Mark Spelman said in a statement that the newspaper was "seeking to attack my wife and is using my son... as a weapon to do so," adding that its purpose was "nakedly political." But Christina Michalos, for Express Newspapers, denied the claim, saying the case was about "freedom of expression in its purest sense" and in the public interest. The editor Gareth Morgan said it highlighted "the pressures on elite athletes from the very beginning of their sporting careers" and that the facts of the case "act as a warning." "Although he is only 17, he is already a role model to other youngsters who aspire to follow in his footsteps and play for their country," Mr Morgan said in a witness statement to the court. This is a much bigger public interest issue than the fact the claimant is the son of a Conservative politician. Exposing... pressures on those who are young at elite level informs and educates those below at grass roots level and helps to promote a culture in the public and in sport... Further details of the claims about Jonathan Spelman were set out in a closed judgment, and little could be said about them in the public ruling other than that they related to his "sporting achievements and aspirations," the judge said. He added: "The diminution of the reasonable expectation of privacy in the world of participants in public sports and performing arts cannot be confined only to those who achieve the highest levels. They reach the highest level by ascending from the lower levels. The restriction on what might otherwise be a reasonable expectation of privacy may well apply to those who aim for the highest level, even if they do not achieve it, or can no longer be expected to achieve it. The judge said the fact Jonathan was under 18 was of "limited support" to his privacy claim and that his status as an "international player" meant that "discussion of his sporting life, and the effect that it may have upon him, is discussion that contributes to a debate of general interest about a person who is to be regarded as exercising a public function."