Motorsport boss Max Mosley has hit back at Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre’s ‘thoroughly disingenuous’remarks on privacy made at the Society of Editors conference.
Writing in the Guardian today, Mosley – who won a £60,000 privacy payout from the News of the World over stories of his sexual encounters – said Dacre’s ‘misplaced moral outrage’about the case showed him to be ‘pompous, self-satisfied and a bit of a prude”.
He wrote: ‘During his speech, Dacre let the real reason slip. Without scandal, tabloid sales will decline. To keep this squalid industry afloat, an unrestricted right to publicise the sex lives of others is necessary, so the judiciary must be silenced.
‘He delights in attacking those who cannot hit back. In open debate, which he always avoids, the intellectual and moral demolition of his position would be swift and complete.”
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In his Society of Editors keynote lecture this weekend, the Mail editor criticised the rulings of High Court judge Justice Eady – who found in favour of Mosley – and accused the judge of using the Human Rights Act to bring in a privacy law ‘by the back door”.
Mosley said suggestions that Justice Eady exercised too much control over media privacy hearings were simply ‘untrue”.
‘Parliament passed the Human Rights Act. Judges enforce it. The main precedents on privacy have been set by the court of appeal and the House of Lords, not by Mr Justice Eady. He interprets and follows those precedents,” he wrote.
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Mosley renewed his calls for a privacy law, arguing that the self-regulatory system currently in place was inadequate.
‘The News of the World editor responsible for my case is still there, despite admitting in the witness box to failing to make the most basic checks before publishing,’he said.
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