As all newspapers, but especially this one, report today, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson has suspended Russell Brand and the similarly gifted Jonathan Ross over the duo’s prank phone calls to actor Andrew Sachs. A “full investigation” will now be launched against a backdrop of an unprecedented number of complaints and the ire of the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
Before hazarding a guess at where all this is going, it is curious to note that some people believe that Mr Sachs’ granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, was “fair game” for victimisation by Brand from the moment she slept with him. He’s a rat, this reasoning goes, so what could she expect? Of course he would mock and betray her, because that’s what Russell Brand does. Into the bargain, she’s a member of a burlesque troupe called the Satanic Sluts, so all the more reason for her to have forfeited any right to privacy. You need only to scroll through the hundreds of comments on all papers’ websites to see this view aired with depressing regularity.
As yet, the precise details of the Brand-Baillie liaison have not been published. The sensitive, discreet Brand might well favour us with edification in due course, but until he does, it seems reasonable to assume that Ms Baillie did not sign a waiver of all rights prior to her liaison with Brand. As we know from the infamous Mosley judgment, the courts today take a dim view of the disclosure of consensual sexual relations, even those with prostitutes. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see the public interest in the Brand-Ross revelation that Brand had slept with Ms Baillie. In short, she wasn’t “fair game.”
So could Ms Baillie sue Brand for invasion of privacy? Her advisor, Max Clifford, is surely contemplating precisely this avenue. But if a claim were made, it wouldn’t merely be against Brand: it would be against the BBC, too, which is vicariously liable for the acts of its presenters.
So, as to where all this is going, it might just be to the Royal Courts of Justice. The BBC will be praying that Ms Baillie doesn’t launch proceedings, because if she does, keeping Brand and Ross on the payroll will be very hard indeed.
