Page 99 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

90 David Rolph

United Kingdom in the last decade through a series of cases involving the
publication of photographs in the mass media.
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In Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd, a television presenter and radio disc jockey,
Jamie Theakston, sought an injunction against a tabloid newspaper, Sunday
People, restraining it from publishing an article accompanied by photographs
of him in a compromising position with several prostitutes in a Soho brothel.
The photographs were taken late at night when Theakston was intoxicated.
The photographs were staged. There was an initial attempt at blackmail. When
Theakston refused to pay, the story and the photographs were provided to
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Sunday People. In dealing with the application, Ouseley J found that the
publication of a verbal description of what occurred at the brothel should not
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be restrained. His Lordship found that the brothel was a public place, which
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members of the public could enter. The encounters with the prostitutes were
transitory, such that no obligation of confidence and no reasonable expectation
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of privacy arose. Ouseley J also found that, given that Theakston was a role
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model to young people, there was a public interest in publication. Moreover,
his Lordship formed the view that the prostitutes‘ right to freedom of
expression, as well as that of the newspaper publisher, should prevail over
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Theakston‘s right to privacy. However, his Lordship dealt separately with the
photographs as a form of information. Ouseley J concluded that:

‗…courts have consistently recognised that photographs can be
particularly intrusive and have showed a high degree of willingness to
prevent the publication of photographs, taken without the consent of the
person photographed but which the photographer or someone else sought
to exploit and publish. This protection extends to photographs, taken
without their consent, of people who exploited the commercial value of
their own image in similar photographs, and to photographs taken with
the consent of people who had not consented to that particular form of
commercial exploitation, as well as to photographs taken in public or
from a public place of what could be seen if not with a naked eye, then at
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least with the aid of powerful binoculars.‘

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[2002] EMLR 22.
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Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd [2002] EMLR 22 at 402-03 per Ouseley J.
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Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd [2002] EMLR 22 at 422-23 per Ouseley J.
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Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd [2002] EMLR 22 at 419 per Ouseley J.
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Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd [2002] EMLR 22 at 419-20 per Ouseley J.
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Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd [2002] EMLR 22 at 421.
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Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd [2002] EMLR 22 at 421-22 per Ouseley J.
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Theakston v M.G.N. Ltd [2002] EMLR 22 at 423-24.