Max Mosley has won his privacy case against The News of The World – the judge held that Mosley’s S&M frolics with prostitutes, whatever their unsavoury nature, had ‘a reasonable expectation of privacy’.
I cannot get my head round this decision. Whatever else, when you pay for sex it isn’t private, any more than paying for a newspaper or using the internet is. I have a reasonable expectation that my email and browser history is private too – but it’s not, any more than paid for sex is.
Prostitution is a public transaction for money and hence can have no reasonable expaction of privacy. What’s more it’s illegal in some circumstances. This decision is just another drawing of the veil of secrecy over the moral bankruptcy of prominent people.
I never thought I’d say this but I’m on the side of the News of The World. I hope they appeal.
