Blade always enjoys the musings of former schoolfriend Nigel Hanson, for some time a journalist but in recent years a media lawyer with Foot Anstey. Here he writes about the Mosley judgment, one which he sees as wholly inimical to freedom of expression and whose “morality-free logic has implications that feel, well, odd.” For example, says Hanson: “Would a married Prime Minister attending brutal S&M sessions be entitled to keep such information private? Quite possibly, in the light of the Mosley ruling – unless there were political hypocrisy that justified publication to expose double-standards, or some other exceptional circumstances.”
Blade begs to differ. Indeed, Blade suspects that if, say, Gordon Brown was found to be enamoured of S&M sessions with sundry prostitutes in a Chelsea basement, an editorial conference might go something like this:
Ed: Have we got pictures and/or video?
News editor: Yes – both.
Ed: Are any of the girls onside?
News ed: Yes, one of them.
Ed: Is she reliable?
News ed: As reliable as can be expected.
Ed: Has she sworn an affidavit and given a statement?
Duty lawyer: Yes.
Ed: How much are we paying her?
News ed: £50K.
Ed: A bargain. Let’s see the pictures.
He looks at an array of images revealing, among many other things, that Gordon Brown is not so boring after all.
Ed: Brilliant! Great story. Let’s get on with it.
Duty lawyer: Er, following Mr Justice Eady’s comments in the Mosley judgment, I ought to point out the courts are likely to conclude that there is no discernible public interest in the Prime Minister’s admittedly intriguing sexual habits.
Ed: Of course the public will be interested! They’ll love it!
Duty lawyer: That may be, but as Eady put it: ‘Where the law is not breached, the private conduct of adults is essentially no one else’s business. The fact that a particular relationship happens to be adulterous, or that someone’s tastes are unconventional or ‘perverted’ does not give the media carte blanche.”
News ed (a literary type): I’m sure there’s a comma missing in that second sentence.
Ed: Where?
News ed: After ‘perverted’.
Ed: That’s an interesting stylistic point, but I’m not sure I agree.
News ed: Let’s call Giles Coren – he’s bound to know.
Ed: Don’t be so stupid. Coren will be out for a nosh somewhere. How much are we in for in damages?
Duty lawyer: At least £60,000, though there is, perhaps, significant solace in the fact that Eady didn’t award exemplary damages.
Ed: And legal costs?
Duty lawyer: Half a million to a million.
Ed: Excellent. A fraction of what we’ll make in sales.
A pause. The news editor looks at his boss expectantly. The duty lawyer ruffles through the pages of Mr Justice Eady’s judgment in the infamous but less-than-landmark Mosley case. Suddenly the door bursts open.
Giles Coren (for it is he): I’ve written a column about the PM which ends with an unstressed syllable and a joke about a truncheon. If any of you f****** mess with it you’ll hear from myself via email. Goodbye.
Exit Coren. Silence, save for the shrieks of sub-editors as he bashes their heads en route through the newsroom.
News ed: I like Giles. I understand where he’s coming from. Sometimes the subs go too far.
Duty lawyer: For what it’s worth, I agree.
Ed: This may come as a surprise, but so do I. I wouldn’t change of a word of his copy for all the brutal S&M stories in Chelsea.
Another pause as the trio read Coren’s column. At first, they are seen chuckling to themselves, then their laughter becomes more audible, until finally it is a cacophony drawing astonished glances from the newsroom. Eventually, wiping tears from their eyes, order is restored.
Ed: Now where were we?
News ed: We were going to ignore the lawyer’s protestations and the likelihood of being in receipt of a legal claim which we have no hope of defending in favour of the splash of the century, one which will cement our reputations and provide astronomical sales figures.
Ed: Quite right. Publish, and be damned!
For a certain poet, an unspoiled stretch of seaside was like “the holy hush there is in the land on Christmas morning. The roads fairly empty, the sky almost free of aeroplanes and you begin to hear and see and smell once more”.
But who uttered these lines?
(It’s a Monday, and this is your starter for 10 – and yes, we’re fresh to the metropolis, from a coastal sojourn.)
The following words appeared in a Times article in 2003, about the paper’s recently departed Head of Legal, Alastair Brett. They’ve been doing the rounds in the wake of Brett’s sudden exit last week, though without attribution. Who, we wonder, wrote them? Two suspects present themselves – our own occasional scribe, Alex Wade, and Dominic Carman, son of the late, great George (an old mucker of Brett’s). Or was someone else the author? Whatever: the fact remains that Brett was a fearless, tenacious and excellent newspaper lawyer, a man whose commitment to press freedom coursed through every vein in his body. We don’t know the precise reasons for his departure, but he will be missed.
“[He] is known for his impassioned commitment to press freedom – so impassioned that he has been described as “certifiably insane”. Capable of an intimidatory snarl or two, and prepared to be stubborn, Brett is far from mad. He is erudite, charming (so the ladies say), and not known for sitting on the fence. If his sanity has, tongue firmly in cheek, been questioned, one thing not open to doubt is that Brett epitomises the old school Fleet Street lawyer”.
Pictured: Fleet Street - not the same as it used to be.
A curious observation leaps at us from Roy Greenslade’s piece about whether Conrad Black, shortly to roam the high-class hotels of the world again as a free man, will return to the UK and carry out his threat to sue his biographer, Tom Bower, for libel:
I somehow doubt that he would have the appetite, or the funds, to pursue a libel action, but Black marches to the sound of his own drummer, so he might just do that. Even if he did, my money would still be on Bower winning.
Hang on, Roy – what about suing via a no win, no fee deal? Funds or no funds, a CFA would see Conrad through – though maybe he’ll remember what happened to the last press baron who sued Bower. Anyone for Richard Desmond’s curious dalliance with libel?
Pictured: the kind of place in which Conrad Black may be spotted (if not at the Royal Courts of Justice).
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A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
Πλάτων, Greek philosopher.