Zeta Jones wanted to choose photographs, ‘like any other bride’

ACTRESS Catherine Zeta Jones was like any other bride in wanting to choose which pictures were published from her wedding, a High Court judge in London was told yesterday.

Instead, a photographer gatecrashed the celebrations at a New York hotel in November 2000 and sold the snatched images to a magazine, said a lawyer representing the actress and her film star husband Michael Douglas.

As a result, the privacy of a wedding was violated and the couple were entitled to damages, said their QC Michael Tugendhat in the Old Bailey.

The couple are suing Hello! which published the images before rival OK!, which had a €1.5 million contract with the couple, hit the streets.

Mr Tugendhat said the Douglases’ wish to have the wedding of their choice was “no more than any couple would want”. They did not want to hide away from family and friends and they wanted their guests to be able to enjoy themselves without worrying about media intrusion.

“There is one way we behave in public and another way we behave in private,” he said.

He said the couple’s contract with OK! allowed them to choose the images which were to be published, retouching of any of the photographs and even whether guests should be edited out. Mr Justice Lindsay, the judge hearing the case, said: “This is what happened in Stalin’s day.”

He said neither of the stars wished to be seen by their public behaving in an unrestrained manner, which is what happens at events such as weddings.

It emerged the photographer who snatched the images using a camera held at his hip was Rupert Thorpe, son of the former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe.

Mr Tugendhat said the hearing, expected to last up to three weeks, was to establish that the couple were entitled to damages for breach of privacy and compensation for OK! for having its exclusive story “spoiled” by Hello! The amount of compensation claimed by the couple is said to be €750.000.

Mr Tugendhat said the couple would have been satisfied if their injunctions stopping publication of the Hello! edition had succeeded.

The two stars are missing for the first week of the trial because Ms Zeta Jones, 33, is attending the Berlin premiere of her film, Chicago, and her 58-year-old husband is on an assignment as an ambassador to the United Nations in Sierra Leone.