The Apprentice host was ordered to remove tweet in January over fears of influencing jury in MP's expenses case
Lord Sugar was forced to remove a Twitter message during one of the parliamentary expenses trials earlier this year, which speculated that a peer would be cleared because he was a Tory, it was revealed on Thursday.
High court judge Mr Justice Saunders ordered the businessman and host of The Apprentice to take down the posting on the social media service, fearing it could unfairly influence jurors.
Saunders referred the matter to the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, who has the power to bring contempt of court charges against individuals or organisations if he believes there is a threat that the outcome of a trial could be prejudiced.
As he allowed the media to report what happened for the first time on Thursday, Saunders also questioned whether the attorney general could take action to minimise the risk to trials from celebrity tweets in the future.
Sugar, who is a Labour member of the House of Lords, posted the message to his then 286,000 followers on Twitter on the second day of the trial of former Conservative peer Lord Taylor in January.
He referred to former Labour MP David Chaytor, who had earlier received an 18-month prison sentence after admitting he fiddled his parliamentary expenses.
Sugar wrote: "Lord Taylor Tory peer in court over alleged expense fiddle. Wonder if he'll get off as he is a Tory compared to Labour MP who was sent to jail."
After learning of the online message, Saunders sent the jury out of court and addressed the lawyers in the case. He told his clerks: "Can someone contact Lord Sugar and get that removed, and we will also have to refer the matter to the attorney general."
The offending tweet was removed from Twitter as soon as Sugar became aware of the problem.
A spokesman for The Apprentice presenter said: "Lord Sugar was away in America so wasn't familiar with the restrictions in the case. As soon as he was, it was taken down. It was a 20-minute matter and is now finished with.
"There is absolutely no way that Lord Sugar would want to prejudice any legal process at all."
A spokesman for the attorney general's office said: "The attorney [general] considered the issue when it was made.
"He concluded there were no grounds for bringing proceedings under the Contempt of Court Act 1981."
Lord Sugar's comments can be reported after Saunders lifted reporting restrictions at the end of the separate expenses trial of Tory peer Lord Hanningfield.
Taylor was found guilty in January of fiddling his Lords expenses so he could fraudulently claim more than �11,000 and will be sentenced at Southwark crown court on Tuesday.
Saunders said on Thursday: "At my request which was conveyed to Lord Sugar the entry was removed and there was no suggestion that the trial had been prejudiced.
"I reported the matter to the attorney general not for the purpose of taking any action against Lord Sugar but to investigate whether entries on Twitter sites of high-profile figures relating to trials which were going to take place or were taking place posed a risk of prejudicing the fairness of a trial and if so whether there were steps that could be taken to minimise that risk."
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/26/alan-sugar-twitter-message
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