Supermodel wins privacy damages fight

Published on Thursday 6 May 2004 01:00

SUPERMODEL Naomi Campbell scored a legal victory today when the Law Lords upheld her right to "invasion of privacy" damages against the Daily Mirror over a story about her fight against drug addiction.

In a 3-2 majority ruling with serious implications for press freedom, the Lords allowed her appeal against a Court of Appeal judgement which cancelled the 3500 award she won from the newspaper in the High Court two years ago for breach of confidentiality and breach of duty under the Data Protection Act.

Miss Campbell’s lawyers had challenged the appeal judges’ ruling that publication in February 2001 of a report about her drug addiction - including a photograph of her leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in Chelsea - was justified in the public interest.

The Court of Appeal had said Campbell had courted, rather than shunned, publicity and had gone out of her way to tell the media that, in contrast to some other models, she did not take drugs. That was not true.

Today, Lord Hope said: "Despite the weight that must be given to the right to freedom of expression that the press needs if it is to play its role effectively, I would hold that there was an infringement of Miss Campbell’s right to privacy that cannot be justified."

The judgement left the Daily Mirror facing a total legal costs bill of more than 1 million.

The importance of the case, in the words of Lord Hoffmann, "lies in the statements of general principle on the way in which the law should strike a balance between the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression".