The legal battle between Naomi Campbell and the Daily Mirror is to go the whole way.
Three law lords, headed by Lord Bingham, the country’s senior law lord, have given the green light for the supermodel to challenge an Appeal Court decision to strip her of High Court damages she was awarded over a story about her attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA).
The appeal is now expected to be heard later this year.
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In a brief notice the lords published their decision to allow the appeal to go ahead. The key issues are whether, when it had been decided that the paper was entitled to publish the fact Campbell had been addicted to drugs, the publication of details relating to non-medical treatment she had received and a photograph of her leaving a treatment session constituted a breach of confidence or invasion of her privacy.
The other question to be decided is whether the exemption in the Data Protection Act in respect of data processing with a view to journalistic publication applied to publication of the article in the Mirror.
In the Appeal Court decision last year, Campbell was stripped of the damages she had won after suing the Mirror over the revelations that she had been attending NA.
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In awarding £3,500 damages in the Mirror action, Mr Justice Morland had backed the claims of the 31-year-old model, who had accused the Mirror of breaches of confidence, privacy and the Data Protection Act.
However, over turning the ruling in the decision Campbell now wants to appeal against, Master of the Rolls Lord Phillips said he and Lords Justices Chadwick and Keene considered that the Mirror had been entitled to publish what they did in the public interest.
By Roger Pearson
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