Law lords to rule on supermodel Campbell's damages claim

England's Law Lords were handing down their judgment today on supermodel Naomi Campbell’s breach of confidentiality claim against the Daily Mirror over the publicity it gave to the therapy she received for drug addiction.

Miss Campbell won £3,500 (€5,100) damages against the newspaper in the High Court two years ago, but the award was overturned by the Court of Appeal, which ordered her to pay the Mirror’s £350,000 (€516,000) legal costs.

In the House of Lords, her lawyers 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 the King’s Road, Chelsea – was justified in the public interest.

Five Law Lords were urged to reinstate the High Court award, based on breach of confidentiality and breach of duty under the 1998 Data Protection Act.

Campbell, 33, accepted the newspaper was entitled to publish the fact that she was a drug addict and having counselling, but argued that details of her therapy were private and confidential.

Mr Justice Morland said in the High Court that the information received by the Mirror “bore the badge of confidentiality”.

He said editor Piers Morgan and his journalists were “clothed in conscience” with the duty of confidentiality.

The details they published were “an unwarranted intrusion into the claimant’s right of privacy” under the Data Protection Act.

“Although many aspects of the private lives of celebrities and public figures will inevitably enter the public domain, in my judgment it does not follow that, even with self-publicists, every aspect and detail of their private lives are legitimate quarry for the journalist,” the judge said.

The Court of Appeal, holding that publication was justified, pointed out that the model had courted, rather than shunned, publicity and had gone out of her way to tell the media that, in contrast to other models, she did not take drugs. That was a lie.

When the case reached the House of Lords in February, the Mirror’s counsel, Desmond Browne QC, said Miss Campbell’s desire for privacy contrasted with her “manipulative and selective” disclosures about her personal life.

He said the High Court had accepted as “entirely genuine” Piers Morgan’s explanation that he had rejected the idea of exposing her as a hypocrite and liar in favour of a sympathetic story on her desire to tackle her drug problems.

Publication was justified to provide a factual account of Miss Campbell’s drug addiction and put the record straight, said Mr Browne.