It’s available now thanks to the lovely BAILII. I’ve not read it yet: but I’ll post about it later today when I’ve had a chance to. From what the judge appears to have said it looks as though there’s nothing really legally new in it. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, though.
Everyone is reading about this case today because it involves a public figure who sued, but I’d like to make the point that ordinary sex workers, who are not in the public eye, are being exposed by the media all the time in the name of sensational sex stories. Tabloid newspapers especially frequently run articles exposing ordinary “working girls”, despite the fact it is not against the law to work as an escort and thus these ladies have committed no crime. The lives of many sex workers in the UK and Ireland have been ruined by this type of journalism. Last month, in Ireland, a TV show exposed two separate independent escorts on national TV for apparently no reason other than salacious TV. I don’t know if today’s verdict will discourage this type of journalism but I hope it will.
It ought to, Patricia. On Eady J’s approach, media organisations need a good public interest reason for publishing that fact that Ms. X had sex with Mr. Y, or indeed simply that she’s had sex with anyone at all, whether or not she was paid. I think it’s pretty clear, too, that simply “showing the reality of prostitution or escorting” wouldn’t be a good enough reason.
Patricia raises a very interesting point.
Two questions: how different would the life of the woman have been, who was connected to Geoffrey Archer if she had been entitled to some privacy?
And, would we have ever known that one of the women connected to Max Mosely was the wife of an MI5 agent?