Invasion of privacy

Ash v McKennitt [2006] EWCA Civ 1714; SJ 5 January

The Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of the trial judge (25/ LL p25) granting an injunction preventing further publication of a significant part of a book written by the appellant about the respondent, a well-known folk music recording artist, a former friend, revealing personal and private details about her that she was entitled to keep private. In a case of a complaint about the wrongful publication of private information, the court first has to decide whether the information was private in the sense that it was in principle protected by the right to privacy under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950. If so, the court then has to decide whether in all the circumstances the interests of the owner of the private information had to yield to the right of freedom of expression conferred on the publisher by article 10 of the Convention. The appellant had no story to tell that was her own as opposed to the respondent’s, and the appellant’s rights under article 10 clearly had to yield to the respondent’s rights under article 8. The respondent was not a public figure in whom there was a legitimate public interest to justify or require exposure of her private life.