Mosley ruling will shackle free speech

The High Court ruling that the News of the World (NoW) breached the privacy of F1 boss, Max Mosley, when it ran a story claiming that a sadomasochistic orgy he took part in had a Nazi theme, has “clapped legitimate investigative journalism in irons”, says media lawyer Mark Stephens.

Mr Justice Eady ruled that Mosley “had a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to sexual activities (albeit unconventional) carried on between consenting adults on private property”.

There was no evidence, the judge said, that Mosley’s romp with five women “was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes”, as intimated by the NoW.

The NoW faces a legal bill of almost £1m after the judge ordered it to pay damages and Mosley’s legal costs, plus its own.

Stephens, head of media at Finers Stephens Innocent, says: “Mr Justice Eady’s judgment makes a clear and unequivocal finding that there were no Nazi overtones to the S & M ‘scene’ captured on film by the NoW. This leaves the media trembling as Mr Mosley now threatens to wield the libel cane over the rest of the media who followed the NoW into this story. The name Mosley now, it seems, will be uttered in the same breath as McCann and Murat,” he adds.