...the trials of being a famous footballer (becks) and a former spice girl (posh)...

Beckham defeat deals blow to privacy of celebrities
By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor
(Filed: 25/04/2005)

David and Victoria Beckham failed to prevent a newspaper from publishing allegations about their marriage yesterday, demonstrating the difficulties that high-profile public figures now have in obtaining injunctions to protect their privacy.

The News of the World claimed that the couple had come close to "breaking point" and that David Beckham had enjoyed a sexual relationship with Danielle Heath, 23, his wife's former beautician. Its reports were based on allegations by Abbie Gibson, 27, who previously worked for the couple as their children's nanny.

On Saturday night, the Beckhams asked the High Court duty judge, Mr Justice Langley, for an injunction to prevent publication of Miss Gibson's claims, arguing that she had broken a confidentiality agreement that she had signed.

The injunction was refused, although the judge would not have made a final ruling on whether Miss Gibson had breached her duty of confidence. According to the News of the World, its counsel, Richard Spearman, QC, persuaded the judge that its story was "in the clear public interest".

Asked yesterday how this could be so, Phil Taylor, one of the newspaper's reporters, told BBC Radio Five Live: "The Beckhams have made millions portraying their relationship as a perfect marriage.

"Abbie lived in their house for two years and she heard their rows. At Christmas it reached breaking point and she heard David say to her that he wanted to split. What's clear is that Victoria is madly in love with him ... and David hasn't been feeling the same." He declined to say how much his newspaper had paid the nanny for her story.

Under the law of confidence, which has been developed by the courts to protect personal privacy, newspapers are allowed to publish confidential information in the public interest.

Because Naomi Campbell, the model, had lied about her addiction to drugs, she had to accept that it was in the public interest for the Daily Mirror to reveal the fact of her addiction and therapy in 2001. Where the newspaper went too far, according to the law lords last year, was in publishing further details and photographs.

Despite Saturday's ruling, which is not a binding precedent, employers will still be able to obtain court orders against former staff to stop them spilling the beans. But the courts see a greater public interest in protecting the privacy of impressionable children than in allowing celebrities to keep sexual indiscretions out of the press.

The News of the World is likely to have relied heavily on a ruling by the Court of Appeal in a case brought against another Sunday newspaper by another footballer, Garry Flitcroft of Blackburn Rovers. His affairs with two women were in the public domain but not, for nearly a year, his identity. A judge had granted an injunction against The People, ordering the press not to name him.

Allowing the newspaper's appeal in 2002, Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, said: "It is not self-evident that how a Premiership football player, who has a position of responsibility within his club, chooses to spend his time off the football field does not have a modicum of public interest.

"Footballers are role models for young people and undesirable behaviour on their part can set an unfortunate example."

Public figures should expect their actions to be scrutinised by the media, Lord Woolf added. The Court of Appeal stressed that it was for the person seeking an injunction to prove that interference with press freedom was in the public interest.

from the telegraph via google news