David Hirst

David specialises in defamation, privacy and confidence, data protection, IP, harassment and other media and entertainment related work and is recommended as a junior barrister in defamation in directories such as Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 2015.

David has an acknowledged interest and expertise in media law cases with technological aspects.

About me

Before coming to the bar David worked at the Serious Organised Crime Agency on the legal aspects of Hi-tech crime and completing research on the news media during the Second World War at Cambridge University.

Notable cases

David undertakes a wide variety of work in the High Court and County Court and represents clients at mediations/ADR. David acts for media organisations and publishers, companies, public figures and private individuals. David is public access accredited and can be instructed directly by members of the public and companies in suitable cases and by all publishers, tv, film and theatre producers and media companies for pre-publication advice. David's recent media law work has included:

• obtaining several harassment injunctions to protect a number of companies and individuals from internet harassment campaigns
• advising on access to documents from courts and tribunals generally, including obtaining a number of orders for The Times for access to court documents under the open justice principle in insolvency courts
• representing the Metropolitan Police in a number of libel actions, including on a trial of meaning as a preliminary issue and in an abuse of processapplication
• representing a whistleblower in breach of confidence proceedings brought by his ex-employer which were eventually struck out
• representing a genealogical research company in proceedings for pre-action disclosure in an internet libel campaign
• advising an international airline and oil company in a blackmail/libel/harassment dispute
• advising individuals on a number of claims under the Google Spain'right to be forgotten' in data protection law, including appeals to the Information Commissioner and strategies for take down of information from search results and other websites
• resisting successfully a number of international requests for UK business intelligence companies to disclose confidential sources in high-profile US commercial litigation
• representing a hedge fund on civil disclosure applications against internet and software companies in response to a misappropriation of valuable commercial IP by an employee
• representing a UK publishing house in respect of a data protection claim in relation to a child abuse memoir
• representing a school in an internet defamation claim where the identity of the defendant was initially unknown, on appeal, and securing a substantial award of damages and an injunction (with Justin Rushbrooke QC)
• representing a director of a hedge fund in a privacy and harassment claim brought by her former husband over surveillance