BRITAIN: Supermodel Naomi Campbell has won a significant legal victory in her long-running battle with the Daily Mirror over its alleged breach of confidentiality in a story about her fight against drug addiction. Frank Millar, London Editor reports
By a three-to-two majority the Law Lords yesterday overturned an Appeal Court ruling that the newspaper's February 2001 report about Ms Campbell's addiction - including a photograph of her leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in London's King's Road - was justified in the public interest. In doing so the Law Lords reinstated Ms Campbell's original High Court award of £3,500 in damages and left the Mirror facing a total legal costs bill of more than £1 million.
Yesterday's ruling could have serious implications for the way in which the media covers the lives of celebrities. And while agreed that Britain is no closer to the introduction of a Privacy Law, a consensus appeared to be emerging last night among MPs, media experts and newspaper editors that British judges will be increasingly active in determining the balance between the individual's right to a private life and the right to publish.
The Court of Appeal had overturned Ms Campbell's original High Court victory, saying she had courted rather than shunned publicity and gone out of her way to tell the media that, in contrast to some other models, she did not take drugs.
Yesterday, however, Lord Hope said: "Despite the weight that must be given to the right of freedom of expression that the press needs if it is to play its role effectively, I would hold that there was here an infringement of Ms Campbell's right to privacy that cannot be justified."
In a statement, the Mirror's editor, Piers Morgan, condemned the judgment. "This is a very good day for lying drug-abusing prima donnas who want to have their cake with the media, and the right to then shamelessly guzzle it with their Cristal champagne. Five senior judges found for the Mirror throughout the various hearings in this case, four for Naomi Campbell. Yet she wins. If ever there was a less deserving case for creating what is effectively a back-door privacy law, it would be Ms Campbell, but that's showbiz."
However, a second of those delivering the final judgment, Baroness Hale, said: "People trying to recover from drug addiction need considerable dedication and commitment, along with constant reinforcement from those around them. That is why organisations like Narcotics Anonymous were set up and why they can do so much good. Blundering in when matters are acknowledged to be at a fragile stage may do great harm."
And Lord Carswell said the publication went beyond simply stating that Ms Campbell was receiving therapy - to which she did not object - and tended to deter her from continuing the treatment and inhibit others attending the course from staying with it.
Celebrity publicist Mr Max Clifford said the ruling would make no difference to newspapers wanting to publish such pictures in the future. "Editors will look at every situation and judge them on their own merits."
He told the BBC that celebrities already enjoyed "far too much protection - and I say that as someone who is paid a fortune to protect them all the time."