F 1’s Max Mosley wins sex privacy case

LONDON – Motor racing boss Max Mosley won damages in London’s High Court yesterday when a judge ruled his privacy was violated after The News of the World published a story about his part in a sado-masochistic orgy.

Mosley, president of Formula One’s governing body and son of Britain’s 1930s Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, did not deny taking part in a German-themed sex session with prostitutes, but said his privacy was violated by the newspaper’s reporting. Justice David Eady sided with Mosley, saying the tabloid Sunday newspaper was not justified in publishing the story and accompanying photographs despite Mosley’s public profile and claims that it was in the public interest.In the story, published earlier this year, the newspaper said the orgy involved Nazi-style role-play, something Mosley denied and the newspaper failed to back up in court.”The claimant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to sexual activities (albeit unconventional) carried on between consenting adults on private property,” Justice Eady wrote in his judgment.”I found that there was no evidence that the gathering on 28 March, 2008 was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes.Nor was it in fact.”The judge awarded Mosley N$900 000 in damages and said the newspaper should pay his costs, estimated at N$6,7 million.Mosley, 68, brought the case earlier this month.Giving evidence, Mosley confessed to having had a penchant for sado-masochism from an early age, but dismissed any suggestion of a Nazi fetish or that there were any Nazi connotations.He said he could think of few things more unerotic given his family history.After the story emerged, Mosley faced pressure to quit his job but held on after winning a confidence vote last month at an extraordinary general assembly of the International Automobile Federation, Formula One’s governing body.In court, Mosley revealed that his wife of 48 years had had no idea about his fetish.He said he had frequently paid up to N$37 500 a time to have prostitutes beat, whip and humiliate him.Nampa-ReutersJustice David Eady sided with Mosley, saying the tabloid Sunday newspaper was not justified in publishing the story and accompanying photographs despite Mosley’s public profile and claims that it was in the public interest.In the story, published earlier this year, the newspaper said the orgy involved Nazi-style role-play, something Mosley denied and the newspaper failed to back up in court.”The claimant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to sexual activities (albeit unconventional) carried on between consenting adults on private property,” Justice Eady wrote in his judgment.”I found that there was no evidence that the gathering on 28 March, 2008 was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes.Nor was it in fact.”The judge awarded Mosley N$900 000 in damages and said the newspaper should pay his costs, estimated at N$6,7 million.Mosley, 68, brought the case earlier this month.Giving evidence, Mosley confessed to having had a penchant for sado-masochism from an early age, but dismissed any suggestion of a Nazi fetish or that there were any Nazi connotations.He said he could think of few things more unerotic given his family history.After the story emerged, Mosley faced pressure to quit his job but held on after winning a confidence vote last month at an extraordinary general assembly of the International Automobile Federation, Formula One’s governing body.In court, Mosley revealed that his wife of 48 years had had no idea about his fetish.He said he had frequently paid up to N$37 500 a time to have prostitutes beat, whip and humiliate him.Nampa-Reuters