Ferdinand in court over 'kiss 'n' tell' story

Football star Rio Ferdinand told the London High Court today of his anger over a “kiss’n’tell” story published when he held the England captaincy.

The 32-year-old Manchester United centre-back, who has three children with wife Rebecca, has sued over the April 2010 Sunday Mirror article in which Carly Storey revealed details of their 13-year relationship.

He is seeking substantial damages, including aggravated damages from MGN Ltd , for misuse of private information.

Dressed in a dark-blue suit, Ferdinand told Mr Justice Nicol that he felt “angry and upset” when he learnt two weeks ago that Ms Storey – who has provided a witness statement but is currently abroad – had been paid £16,000 by the newspaper.

His QC, Hugh Tomlinson, asked whether, as had been suggested, he was really bringing the action to protect his reputation which he had spent some time “polishing” for financial reasons.

Ferdinand answered: “No, I just thought a line needs to be drawn. There comes a time to say ’no’ and this is the time.”

MGN claims it was in the public interest to run the story about Ferdinand who, in February 2010, replaced John Terry as England captain before Terry was reinstated by manager Fabio Capello this year.

Mr Tomlinson said that the story was about “what is alleged to be an affair”.

It was not disputed that Ferdinand and Ms Storey first met as teenagers in the 1990s and had at one time been close, but had drifted apart even before Ferdinand moved to Leeds in 2000.

At the time of the article, said counsel, they had not met for a number of years but exchanged text messages from time to time.

Their last contact was in February 2010 when there was an exchange of texts but no further contact and, a few weeks later, Ms Storey contacted Max Clifford and arranged to sell her story.

The issue at the heart of the case is whether the newspaper was justified in publishing because the over-riding public interest was such that its Article 10 rights to freedom of expression trumped Ferdinand’s Article 8 privacy rights of the Human Rights Act.

Mr Tomlinson said Ferdinand was given no notice that the story was about to appear which, he said, was a ``cynical and deliberate'' move to stop him applying for an injunction.

The information in the article was “entirely private” and had never previously been discussed in the media.

Just because Ferdinand had been blessed with special skills as a sportsman did not mean that his private life was something newspapers could write about without restriction, Mr Tomlinson said.

The true purpose in publishing the story was to sell newspapers and titillate readers, he added.

Counsel said such cases were quite rare as it took a lot of courage to come to court and expose one’s private life.

He asked: “Is it proper for a newspaper to buy information about someone’s private life, to trade in that information simply because they are well known, simply because they have been written about before? We say the answer to that question is plainly ’no’.”

He rejected the newspaper’s argument that the article was justified because Ferdinand was a public figure or a publicity seeker.

“He is not the kind of footballer who invites OK magazine into his home or has a multimillion-pound wedding with 2,000 of his closest friends in attendance.”

Mr Tomlinson described the public interest defences as “extraordinarily thin”.

The article made no contribution to the debate about the England captaincy as it appeared two months after John Terry was replaced.

“John Terry was removed because he was said to have had an affair with the former girlfriend of a team-mate, making relations in the dressing room very difficult. No such suggestion has ever been made about the claimant.”

There was also nothing in the claim that Ferdinand had been in some way hypocritical or deceived the public.

He said that whatever Article 10 rights Ms Storey had, they were “of very low value”.

“She is not contributing to a debate about the future of the nation. She is earning some money.”