Injunction 'terrified' Jeremy Clarkson's ex-wife

The ex-wife of TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has said she was "terrified" when he gained an injunction preventing their alleged affair being reported.

Alex Hall, who had been planning to write a book, was ordered not to talk about a renewed relationship she said she had had with the re-married star.

But she told MPs and peers she had not wanted to give "salacious" details and her free speech had been impaired.

Mr Clarkson, who presents the BBC's Top Gear, lifted the injunction in October.

He said he dropped the order, preventing any mention in the media, because it had been expensive and "pointless".

This followed the details of the order itself being spread on the internet.

Appearing in front of Parliament's Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, Mrs Hall said she had planned to write a book about the effects of having a relationship with a celebrity and had told Mr Clarkson.

She told the MPs and peers: "About a week later there was an injunction on me. He said, 'I won't have anyone write anything about me'."

But the work she had been planning was in fact "a sort of witty self-help book", Mrs Hall said.

She added: "There wasn't anything detrimental that could hurt his career. In fact it was going to be quite nice and favourable. He didn't want any acknowledgement that he had an ex-wife, I don't think.

"I think he was worried about his relationship with his current wife, knowing that I still had an association with him that he wasn't being completely honest about."

Mrs Hall said she had "no intention" of describing the relationship they had had after their divorce, claiming that it was Mr Clarkson who had mentioned it in the witness statement he gave to obtain the injunction.

This had led to the rumours on internet sites like Twitter, she added.

Mrs Hall also said: "You do have a moral issue, not to publish certain aspects, and I always said I wasn't going to publish those aspects, or any salacious details.

"The fact that we had a relationship from the age of 17 to 26 is public knowledge... the whole point of it is that it's had a massive impact on my life because he's become famous."

She described her surprise at receiving the injunction, saying: "I got sent a text message saying I ought to look at my e-mail because I had an injunction on it. I had no idea what to do with this injunction. It was terrifying."

The injunction had been "anonymised", so the press could only report that it had been taken out, but not by whom and against whom.

But, Mrs Hall went on: "Everyone I knew knew something now, not because I had said anything, but he had. Everyone in the community knew who the papers were writing about.

"I couldn't work. I had to give up working to deal with the injunction...

"I didn't have time to work and deal with the injunction. It became a full-time job for three months putting all the information together.

"I think you could hear the tremble in my voice for months. Whenever I spoke to someone about it I was always close to tears. I was totally frightened. I was out of my league, out of my depth."

She described appearing on television once the injunction had been dropped and the story had broken as "entirely gruesome and gruelling".

Mrs Hall said her initial legal advice had cost £10,000, adding: "I had to go in with £5,000 cheque, which I had to borrow. That terrified me because I couldn't afford it."

She said: "Jeremy Clarkson makes a lot of money from his life... why should I not be able to talk about my life? It's a free country.

"To be able to write something that I want to write on my views and opinions... why shouldn't anyone write what they want to write, if it's true?"

The committee, made up of 13 MPs and 13 peers, is looking at whether laws involving privacy need to be updated. it is expected to report its conclusions next month.