Privacy

It was well established that the law recognised an entitlement to privacy in respect of personal relationships, including those which happened to involve adultery. Even then much depended on the facts of the particular case. Generalisations were best avoided. The court might have to consider the extent to which the relationship in question had been conducted in secrecy. Nevertheless there was potentially an important distinction between information which had been made available to a person’s circle of friends or work colleagues and information which was widely published in a newspaper. One must not confuse the question of whether there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to certain information, such as the existence of a family or family connection, with that of whether tabloid publicity would be likely to involve harassment or intrusion in the immediate aftermath. It was often an important factor to make an assessment of the individual claimant’s own attitude towards the maintaining of privacy or secrecy