Mosley appears at Leveson inquiry

Former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley took the News of the World to court for its “sick Nazi orgy” story about him because he was so keen to “demonstrate they were liars”, he said today.

He proceeded with the High Court action despite being warned it would cost him dearly and bring his private information back into the public domain, he said.

Giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, he said he had been told that if he lost the case, it could cost him £1m or more and even if he won, it would still cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

He was also reminded that “taking the matter to court, the entire private information would be rehearsed again”, he said.

But, he went on: “Taking all that into account, I thought what they have done is so outrageous I wanted to get these people into the witness box and demonstrate they were liars.

“And the only way to do this was to put up with this extremely unpleasant process.”

Mr Mosley was the subject of a front-page article in the now-defunct Sunday tabloid on March 30 2008, alleging he took part in a “sick Nazi orgy” - something he strongly denied.

He was awarded a record £60,000 in privacy damages over the story.

But he was fortunate, he told the inquiry, in having enough money and a bit of legal knowledge to bring the action.

“I thought ’If I don’t do it, who’s going to?’,” he said. “Because the number of people they pick on with a really bad case who have got the means to fight it is infinitesimally small.

“One of the terrible things is that unless you’re very fortunate and happen to have a lot of money, you simply can’t take this on, as things stand at the moment.”

Mr Mosley said tabloid newspapers used an ``outdated'' view of morality to justify attacking people with unconventional sexual tastes.

He said: “The problem is that if you could breach privacy merely because you disapproved of what someone was doing or it was not to your taste, you would be all over the place.

“Because sexual behaviour covers a huge variety of things, and when you start analysing it, what I might like someone else might hate, and vice-versa, so where would it stop?

“The rational thing is to say that provided it’s adults and provided it’s in private and provided everybody consents, genuinely consents, then it’s nobody else’s business.”

He went on: “The idea that it’s in some way the function of tabloid journalists to pillory people whose taste may be unusual is completely outdated.

“If that had not disappeared, we would still be persecuting homosexuals, the gay community would be at risk, or anybody else.”

Mr Mosley told the inquiry that his reputation would never recover from the story published by the News of the World.

“However long I live now, that is the number one thing that people think of when they hear my name,” he said.