Clifford fails in bid to stop Burrell privacy case

Disgraced PR guru Max Clifford has failed to win a ruling blocking a privacy claim brought against him by former royal butler Paul Burrell.

Clifford, currently serving an eight-year jail sentence for sex offences, has branded Mr Burrell’s £50,000 High Court action for breach of confidence and misuse of private information as an ”affront to common sense“.

Mr Burrell said that he hired Clifford in 2001 to limit bad press coverage about him but, rather than stopping stories, the publicist passed on material to the now-defunct News Of The World.

Clifford’s case is that their agreement was for him to sell information to a newspaper and the fax was a “teaser”.

Last month, Clifford’s counsel, Lorna Skinner told Mr Justice Mann in London that the case was brought outside the legal time limit and would be a waste of court resources.

But today, the judge refused to strike out the claim.