Max Mosley wins privacy case against News of the World

Max Mosley has won his privacy case against the News of the World (NOTW), which claimed he had taken part in a 'Nazi-style' orgy with prostitutes.

Mosley was awarded £60,000 in damages by the High Court after it ruled the paper did breach the privacy of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president.

However, the court decided against awarding punitive damages, which could have been used to 'deter' the News of the World from similar courses of action in the future.

In his judgment Mr Justice Eady said there was no evidence to support claims that the incident involving Mosley on March 28 'was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes. Nor was it in fact.'

"It is perhaps worth adding that there is nothing 'landmark' about this decision," said Eady.

"Nor can it seriously be suggested that the case is likely to inhibit serious investigative journalism into crime or wrongdoing, where the public interest is more genuinely engaged."

The NOTW had previously won the right to republish a video of the incident on its website with Mr Justice Eady ruling that the footage was too widely available online for an injunction from Mosley to have any effect.

The video entitled 'Max Mosley in 5 vice girl Nazi orgy' generated a host of news stories for the paper as it sparked calls for Mosley's resignation and a follow-up from an expert in Nazi psychology.

The paper also ran a transcript of the video and sent the tape to the FIA Senate.

"There was no public interest or other justification for the clandestine recording, for the publication of the resulting information and still photographs, or for the placing of the video extracts on the News of the World website – all of this on a massive scale," said Eady.

"In this case, the pleaded claim is confined to publication of the information; it does not include the intrusive method by which it was acquired. Yet obviously the nature and scale of the distress caused is in large measure due to the clandestine filming and the pictures acquired as a result."

In a statement from the NOTW, editor Colin Myler said he was pleased no punitive damages had been awarded and that the judge recognised 'that Mr Mosley is largely the author of his own misfortune'.

"The judge has ruled that Mr Mosley’s activities did not involve Nazi role-play as we had reported, but has acknowledged that the News of the World had an honest belief that a Nazi theme was involved during the orgy," said Myler.

"The newspaper believed that what it published on March 30 2008 was legitimate and lawful and, moreover, that publication was justified by the public interest in exposing Mr Mosley’s serious impropriety."

Myler said the paper would continue to defend its readers' 'right to know'. He also criticised the implementation of European privacy laws in UK courts.

"It is not for the rich and the famous, the powerful and the influential, to dictate the news agenda, just because they have the money and the means to gag a free press," he said.

"Unfortunately, our press is less free today after another judgement based on privacy laws emanating from Europe.

"How those very general laws should work in practice has never been debated in the UK parliament (...) The result is that our media are being strangled by stealth."

Read News of the World editor Colin Myler's reaction to the Mosley judgment in full and view the full judgment by Mr Justice Eady.

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