A British court awarded Max Mosley, the head of Formula One, £60,000 (about $120,000) in his privacy case against the News of the World paper. Mosley, who paid 5 prostitutes £500 each for a 5-hour sadomasochistic sex session, was secretly videotaped by one of the domintraices. NOW paid “Woman E” £12,000 to film Mosley’s spanking session, and then splashed photos of him on its cover, proclaiming that he was involved in a “sick nazi orgy.” Their basis for this claim was that he and the women reenacted a concentration camp scene where he played guard and victim. He also spoke German at times, and one of the women said “We are the Aryan race - blondes!” The judge’s ruling:
I found that there was no evidence that the gathering on March 28 2008 was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes. Nor was it in fact. I see no genuine basis at all for the suggestion that the participants mocked the victims of the Holocaust.
There was bondage, beating and domination which seem to be typical of S&M behaviour. But there was no public interest or other justification for the clandestine recording, for the publication of the resulting information and still photographs, or for the placing of the video extracts on the News of the World website – all of this on a massive scale.
Of course, I accept that such behaviour is viewed by some people with distaste and moral disapproval, but in the light of modern rights-based jurisprudence that does not provide any justification for the intrusion on the personal privacy of the claimant.
So, the NOW invaded his privacy, but the judge ruled that the paper held an honest belief that the session had Nazi elements, so it didn’t award Mosley “exemplary damages.”
All in all, a good day for s&m lovers everywhere.
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