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Despite considering
suing the Press and Journal, which repeated the allegations
unchecked, and without contacting him, Morton
feels uneasy about any developing privacy law.
"I've
worked for the red-tops, and they are like a wild animal, you
can't expect them to act reasonably. As a journalist myself
I'd have to look very closely at the details of any emerging
law. Although I think everyone has the right to a private life,
I always realised there would be a price to pay if you are a
public figure and are on the radio."
There is no
guarantee that any emerging privacy law will be used correctly.
Alistair Bonnington, BBC Scotland's head of legal, says the
making a documentary about Glasgow
Sherriff Court
showed the way privacy law could be abused to the detriment
of good journalism.
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Bonnington
says the team worked with a woman whose partner was charged
with a number of crimes. They interviewed her over a period
of days, filming her experience of the justice system. But after
filming was over, the woman changed her mind and decided she
didn't want to be included in the film.
When the BBC
refused to acquiesce, she applied for legal aid and won a court
order that delayed broadcast of the piece for eight months
on the grounds
the documentary had invaded her privacy. When the piece was
eventually broadcast, her face had to be pixilated out.
Says Bonnington:
"The courts accepted her argument that she was very drunk
when signing the consent forms and throughout all the filming."
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For Deane,
whatever the eventual outcome of the Mosley case it will not
have too alarming an effect on
the way the media works. But that, he warns, could be just around
the corner.
"This
law is evolving all the time and unlike the laws governing libel
editors do not yet know where they stand, what they can do and
what they cannot do. That will only come when Joe Bloggs, someone
with no public profile at all, tests the principles made in
cases such as the Mosley one, and brings an action. Then we
will see what the privacy law will really mean."
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