[Bob Tanner]

Mosley wins British privacy suit against tabloid
Published: 7/24/08, 10:25 AM EDT
By JILL LAWLESS
LONDON (AP) - Motor racing boss Max Mosley won a closely watched privacy-invasion lawsuit Thursday over a British tabloid's claims he took part in a Nazi-themed orgy, and the judge ordered the newspaper to pay more than $1 million.

High Court judge David Eady ruled the News of the World must pay Mosley $120,000 in damages plus legal costs for the story claiming Mosley participated in a sadomasochistic sex romp with a Third Reich theme.

Mosley's legal costs are estimated at about $900,000. The newspaper must also pay its own legal costs of about $800,000.

Mosley, 68, admits the encounter with sex workers, but says it was private and there were no Nazi overtones.


"(The ruling exposed) the Nazi lie upon which the News of the World sought to justify their disgraceful intrusion into my private life," Mosley said in a statement. "I hope my case will help deter newspapers in the U.K. from pursuing this type of invasive and salacious journalism."

The Nazi issue was especially sensitive because Mosley is the son of the late Oswald Mosley, Britain's best-known fascist politician in the 1930s and a friend of Adolf Hitler.

The payout is large for a British privacy lawsuit, where damages awards are usually modest. But the judge did not award punitive damages Mosley had sought to deter other newspapers from running similar stories.

News of the World Editor Colin Myler said the ruling had made the British press less free.

"It is not for the rich and the famous, the powerful and the influential, to dictate the news agenda, just because they have the money and the means to gag a free press," Myler said. "That is why the News of the World will remain committed to fighting for its readers' right to know."

In a written ruling, the judge wrote that Mosley "had a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to sexual activities (albeit unconventional) carried on between consenting adults on private property."

He said he had found no evidence the orgy was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behavior or that the participants mocked the victims of the Holocaust.

The judge said the damages aimed to compensate Mosley for his embarrassment but were not intended "to inhibit serious investigative journalism into crime or wrongdoing, where the public interest is more genuinely engaged."

During a weeklong hearing this month, the court heard evidence from Mosley and four of the women he met for sadomasochistic sessions at an apartment he rented for the purpose in London's affluent Chelsea neighborhood.

During the hearing, the court was played covertly recorded videos that showed Mosley being bound and whipped, then relaxing naked with a cup of tea. Some of the participants wore striped prison-style uniforms and one dominatrix wore a German Luftwaffe jacket.

Mosley told the court he had an interest in sadomasochism going back 45 years, but said he found the idea of Nazi sex fantasies abhorrent. He said he and the women acted out a German prison scenario, with no Nazi overtones.

After the News of the World story broke in March, Mosley faced calls to quit as president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, which oversees Formula One racing. Despite the pressure, he won a confidence vote last month allowing him to stay until his fourth term ends in October 2009.

Mosley said he planned to donate his damages award to the FIA Foundation, a road safety and environmental charity.

[DOF_power]

Right now Mosley has done what was once considered impossible, someone/something (and FIA president) with even less credibility and a worse image than NoTW.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by DOF_power

Right now Mosley has done what was once considered impossible, someone/something (and FIA president) with even less credibility and a worse image than NoTW.

so you're saying they dragged him down to their level? or that he was already there, but able to hide it?

[DOF_power]

The second statement.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by DOF_power

The second statement.

thought so...

[clutch]

Originally Posted by DOF_power

Right now Mosley has done what was once considered impossible, someone/something (and FIA president) with even less credibility and a worse image than NoTW.

I actually think that he does have credibility.......I wont comment on his morals as we ALL have our faults, but you have to give him credit for not laying down when it looks like his chips were done...

still has his F1 job til the end of his term next year anyways......$120,000 from the paper all after embarassing revelations of his private life

I have to salute him for not backing down.........its actually Eccelstone that I now am suspicious of