Madonna wins first round with Mail on Sunday

Madonna, who is always in fighting shape, has won a round against the British press.

The pop star won a judgment yesterday against a British tabloid that she accused of breaching her privacy and copyright by publishing pictures of her 2000 wedding.

Madonna, who says the pictures were stolen by an interior decorator from her home in Beverly Hills, California, is seeking damages in excess of £5 million (€5.73m) pounds from the publishers of the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

Judge David Eady entered a judgment in her favour but deferred compensation until the new year.

Madonna and film director Guy Ritchie, who recently gained a preliminary divorce decree, were married at a Scottish castle on December 22, 2000.

No pictures of the event had been published until they appeared on October 19 this year in the Mail on Sunday, said Matthew Nicklin, a lawyer representing Madonna. The paper published 11 photographs. Nicklin said the paper paid £5,000 for the pictures.

“She was ambushed, for the simple reason that if the Mail on Sunday had told her what they intended to do, the claimant would have sought and obtained an injunction,” Nicklin said.

Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Mail on Sunday, had no immediate comment on the decision.

Nicklin said the only photographs of the wedding were taken by photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino and presented to Madonna as a gift. He said Madonna put the photographs in an album she kept in her home.

He said an interior designer, Robert Joseph Wilber, “surreptitiously gained access to the album and copied 26 photos”.

Those images were sold to the Mail on Sunday by a woman identified as Bonnie Robinson, Nicklin said.