'Naomi could have been branded liar' appeal judges told

Naomi Campbell could have been branded a "liar and a hypocrite" when she insisted in interviews she had managed to avoid illegal drugs, three appeal judges have been told.

But the newspaper which published details about her therapy at Narcotics Anonymous said her seeking treatment should be emulated by others with similar problems and that a photograph showed she was winning the battle.

Desmond Browne, QC, was opening the appeal for the Daily Mirror against a High Court judge's ruling in favour of Miss Campbell involving breach of confidentiality.

The newspaper is contesting the £3,500 damages award and the decision it must pay Miss Campbell's legal costs.

Mr Browne has told the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, and Lords Justice Chadwick and Keene that the appeal raises important questions about the laws relating to confidentiality.

He says it should be up to the claimant to justify any restriction on freedom of expression was strictly necessary. He says the personal information published about Miss Campbell had been "trivial and anodyne".

The model was a drug addict who had previously denied in public that she was using narcotics and the newspaper had found out that this was dishonest, he said.

Mr Browne says Miss Campbell was by her own account a role model to other young black women and Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, had ruled in a different case that public figures had to expect to be more closely scrutinised by the media than others.

"The newspaper treatment of the story was sympathetic," he said. Instead of branding her a hypocrite, it "praised her for seeking treatment".

Miss Campbell claimed she felt "shocked, angry, betrayed and violated" by the February 2001 report which included a photograph of her leaving the NA meeting in London.