Hello! says goodbye to €1.5m over snatched pictures of stars’ wedding

SNATCHED pictures of the wedding of Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas cost celebrity magazine Hello! over €1.5 million yesterday.

In one of the final acts of the long-running courtroom drama, British High Court judge Mr Justice Lindsay was giving judgment on the Hollywood couple's claim for damages.

He gave them a total of £14,600 (€21,000) and awarded Hello!'s rival OK! £1,033,156 (€1.5m), for commercial damage to its exclusive coverage of the New York wedding in November 2000.

Lawyers acting for the couple hailed the award as "historic" and said they would be donating their damages to The Family Learning Centre.

Hello! said it was "very happy" that the total award to the Douglases was £14,600 they had been seeking £600,000 (€870,000).

But Hello! said it was disappointed by the £1m-plus award to OK! and it would appeal against this part of the judgment.

The couple won a partial victory against Hello! in April when a judge ruled the magazine breached their commercial confidence with the photos.

The question of who will pay the estimated £4m (€5.8m) costs of the trial is to be the subject of a two-day hearing yet to be scheduled.

The Douglases' lawyers argued at a damages hearing in July that their original claim for £500,000 (€725,000) should be increased to compensate them for the personal distress they suffered after the paparazzi invaded their wedding.

Alastair Wilson QC told the judge the Douglases were entitled to damages not only for the damage caused to their commercial rights but also for the real personal distress they had suffered.

The Douglases claimed victory when Mr Justice Lindsay ruled in April that Hello! had breached their rights of confidence. OK! had sued for £1.75m (€2.5m) and yesterday's award of £1m-plus reflected the judge's intention of making "Hello! alive to the unwisdom of its acting as it did".

During the six-week hearing of one of the most publicised cases heard at the High Court in London, Zeta Jones, 33, said she felt "devastated, shocked and appalled" when she realised 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 it did not lessen their right to complain about intrusion. There was no doubt the couple had suffered real distress, said the judge.