Hollywood couple's 'real distress' over secret photos

Catherine Zeta Jones and husband Michael Douglas suffered not only commercial but personal distress when the paparazzi invaded their wedding, a High Court judge was told today.

Alastair Wilson QC, representing the Hollywood golden couple, was opening the second phase of the legal battle against Hello! magazine which published unauthorised photographs of the New York ceremony in November 2000.

He told Mr Justice Lindsay that the Douglases were entitled to damages not only for the damage caused to their commercial rights – they had signed a £1m (€1.4m) exclusive deal with celebrity magazine OK! – but also for the real personal distress they had suffered.

“This is rather like a burglary when possessions are stolen and the value gone and at the same time you feel a senses of personal invasion of privacy.

“This is a real distress quite separate from the value of possessions which have also disappeared.”

The Douglases claimed victory when Mr Justice Lindsay ruled in April that Hello! celebrity magazine had breached their rights of confidence.

It is now up to the same judge to decide what damages Hello! must pay to the couple and to OK!.

The Douglases were claiming £500,000 (€714,000) and OK! had sued for £1.75m (€2.5m) but the total claim is now believed to be around £2.5m (€3.6m).

During the six-week hearing of one of the most publicised cases heard at the High Court in London, which has cost more than £3m (€4.3m) in legal fees so far, Zeta Jones, 33, told how she had felt “devastated, shocked and appalled” when she realised that paparazzi had gatecrashed her wedding at New York’s Plaza Hotel and secretly taken pictures despite massive security precautions.

The judge said the wedding was an exceptional event for any bride and groom and just because Michael Douglas, 58, and Zeta Jones were public figures did not lessen their right to complain about intrusion.

There was no doubt that the couple had suffered real distress, said the judge, and that Zeta Jones had cried when she learned of the unauthorised photographs.