Grantham had filed a complaint in May over articles published in the Daily Star, The Sun, the Daily Record, the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror that, referring to earlier revelations that the actor had been participating in internet sex sessions, claimed he had a sex addiction, and had been instructed by the BBC to attend a sex clinic.
This, argued Grantham, was in breach of the right to privacy contained in the Commission's Code of Practice, which says:
"Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications. Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent."
Grantham also relied on a recent House of Lords ruling that a Daily Mirror article detailing supermodel Campbell's attendance at Narcotics Anonymous meetings breached her right to privacy, enshrined in the Human Rights Act of 1998, because it concerned information about a person's health or treatment for ill-health.
The articles, said the actor, related to a medical condition suffered by him and should be regarded in the same light.
The Commission rejected this argument, finding that "The information complained about – rather than comprising private medical details that might have been found in the complainant's medical record – in fact related to a requirement that had allegedly been made by the complainant's employer following a disciplinary hearing."
Grantham's behaviour had become public knowledge after an earlier report in another paper, about which there had been no complaint, that the actor had carried out an explicit act, which was "broadcast by him to a stranger over the internet, using a webcam," said the press watchdog.
Grantham had made a public apology over this incident, and the Commission therefore found that "where the events leading up to the complainant's disciplinary hearing had been made public without complaint, the public had a right to know what the outcome of the disciplinary hearing was."
If this included a requirement that Grantham should seek treatment, then the newspapers had a right to include this in their reports of the incident.
