Judge in Mosley case 'is sneaking in privacy law'

THE judge who presided over the Max Mosley sadomasochism trial has been accused of "arrogant and amoral" judgments which will result in a privacy law by the back door.

Paul Dacre, the editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Evening Standard, said Mr Justice Eady was "inexorably and insidiously" imposing a privacy law on the British Press.

In a speech to the annual conference of the Society of Editors, Mr Dacre said it was wrong for a privacy law to come into effect through one judge's actions.

"If Gordon Brown wanted to force a privacy law, he would have to set out a Bill, arguing his case in both Houses of Parliament, withstand public scrutiny and win a series of votes," Mr Dacre said.

"Now, thanks to the wretched Human Rights Act, one judge with a subjective and highly relativist moral sense can do the same with a stroke of his pen."

Mr Dacre said that when it came to suppressing media freedom Mr Justice Eady was seemingly ubiquitous, adding "surely the greatest scandal is that while London boasts scores of eminent judges, one man is given a virtual monopoly of all cases against the media enabling him to bring in a privacy law by the back door".

English Common Law was the collective wisdom of many different judges over the ages. "The freedom of the press, I would argue, is far too important to be left to the somewhat desiccated values of a single judge who clearly has an animus against the popular press and the right of people to freedom of expression," he said.

"I personally would rather have never heard of Max Mosley and the squalid purgatory he inhabits. It is the others I care about: the crooks, the liars, the cheats, the rich and the corrupt sheltering behind a law of privacy being created by an unaccountable judge."

He added that in the case brought by Mr Mosley, the head of Formula One, against the News of the World Mr Justice Eady "effectively ruled that it was perfectly acceptable for the multi-millionaire head of a multi-billion sport that is followed by countless young people to pay five women £2,500 to take part in acts of unimaginable sexual depravity with him".

Mr Dacre said: "What is most worrying about Justice Eady's decisions is that he is ruling that - when it comes to morality - the law in Britain is now effectively neutral, which is why I accuse him, in his judgments, of being 'amoral'."