Max Mosley wins damages in sex privacy case

By Luke Baker

LONDON (Reuters) - Motor racing boss Max Mosley won damages in the High Court on Thursday when a judge ruled his privacy was violated after The News of the World published a story about his part in a sado-masochistic orgy.

Mosley, president of Formula One's governing body and son of Britain's 1930s Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, did not deny taking part in a German-themed sex session with prostitutes, but said his privacy was violated by the newspaper's reporting.

Justice David Eady sided with Mosley, saying the tabloid Sunday newspaper was not justified in publishing the story and accompanying photographs despite Mosley's public profile and claims that it was in the public interest.

In the story, published earlier this year, the newspaper said the orgy involved Nazi-style role-play, something Mosley denied and the newspaper failed to back up in court.

"The claimant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to sexual activities (albeit unconventional) carried on between consenting adults on private property," Justice Eady wrote in his judgment.

"I found that there was no evidence that the gathering on 28 March, 2008 was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes. Nor was it in fact."

The judge awarded Mosley 60,000 pounds in damages and said the newspaper should pay his costs, estimated at 450,000 pounds.

Mosley, 68, brought the case earlier this month, saying the newspaper, which published pictures showing the Formula One boss being spanked by women dressed as prison guards, was responsible for a "gross and indefensible intrusion of his private life".