Mosley and McCann speak out
By politics.co.uk staff
MPs are hearing evidence in Westminster today from the father of Madeleine McCann and formula one chief Max Mosley.
The unlikely pair are being questioned for the culture, media and sport committee’s ongoing inquiry into press standards, privacy and libel inquiry.
Mr Mosley hit the headlines last year when pictures of him allegedly participating in a sadomasochistic orgy with prostitutes were published by media outlets. He subsequently received £60,000 in damages, an unprecedented amount for privacy ruling damages.
Although the FIA president won a vote of support at an extraordinary meeting in Paris he was unable to operate in a complete capacity since the allegations about his private life surfaced. He will stand down at the scheduled end of his tenure in October 2009.
Mr Mosley said in July 2008 “some newspapers literally ruin people’s lives”, adding that “more has to be done to stop this”.
Expressing how he felt when the News of the World story broke, Mr Mosley told the committee today it was like returning to one’s house to discover all one’s personal items had been stolen.
“It is the most terrible thing imaginable,” he said.
“It’s like taking all your books, all your money. In fact it’s worse because if someone takes away your dignity you can never replace it. I’m not ashamed of it, just like I’m not ashamed of my bodily functions. But I don’t want it splashed all over the front page of a newspaper,” he continued.
“Putting myself in the position of my sons: can you imagine seeing pictures like that of your father? It’s just appalling.”
Gerry McCann, meanwhile, was at the centre of huge press attention as he sought to persuade the abductor of his daughter – who was three when she disappeared in March 2007 – to return her to her family.
Mr McCann harnessed the media’s interest to maximise the chances of his daughter being spotted.
But journalists’ interest in the case led to unjustified attention falling on Robert Murat, who told the Cambridge Union last week he was on the receiving end of “a torrent of outlandish, untrue, and deeply hurtful allegations”.
And Mr McCann and his wife were themselves the subject of unjustified claims about their alleged role in the disappearance, resulting in Express Newspapers paying them £550,000 over a libel case which ended in March 2008.
The committee will investigate why the media’s self-regulatory regime was not used in the McCann case.
It is also interested in “the interaction between the operation and effect of UK libel laws and press reporting” and “whether, in the light of recent court rulings, the balance between press freedom and personal privacy is the right one”.
