The News of the World (NotW) successfully defended an action to
prevent it publishing a sex video on its web site. The video had
been published last week but was taken down a day later pending the
hearing.
The video showed Max Mosley, the president of Formula One
organisation the FIA, with five alleged prostitutes.
The newspaper alleged that the sex sessions had a Nazi element.
It said that participants wore German military uniforms, that
German was spoken and that mock head lice inspections took place.
Mosley's father was the wartime British fascist leader Oswald
Mosley.
Mosley sought a High Court injunction preventing the publication
of the video and is pursuing a case for breach of privacy against
the publishers of the NotW.
Mr Justice Eady said that there was little point in serving an
injunction preventing the video's publication because it had
already spread all around the internet and was available to view
elsewhere.
"I have come to the conclusion that the material is so widely
accessible that an order in the terms sought would make very little
practical difference," he said.
"One may express this conclusion either by saying that Mr Mosley
no longer has any reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of
this now widely familiar material or that, even if he has, it has
entered the public domain to the extent that there is, in practical
terms, no longer anything which the law can protect. The dam has
effectively burst."
The judge ruled that he would not prevent publication despite
saying that the video is both unpleasant and intrusive.
"I have, with some reluctance, come to the conclusion that
although this material is intrusive and demeaning, and despite the
fact that there is no legitimate public interest in its further
publication, the granting of an order against this respondent at
the present juncture would merely be a futile gesture," he
said.
Steven James of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM,
said that the judge in this case was applying an
already-established principle.
"The material had been so widely circulated that there was
nothing much left to injunct. This principle has been engrained in
English law since the famous 'Spycatcher' case, where the Attorney
General failed to prevent publication of Peter Wright's book on the
Secret Service because the material was so widely available in
other jurisdictions," he said.
"The grant of an injunction is entirely at the discretion of the
Court and it is therefore not surprising that Mr Justice Eady
refused to grant one where to do so would be futile in practice,"
he said.
