“It is a case that very much turns on its facts,” said David Malone, a criminal barrister at Red Lion Chambers. “The judgment was not a blanket ban on reporting names.”

August 6, 2018

Lawyers Make Hay With Pop Icon’s BBC Privacy Win

[Article in Bloomberg Read here]

It took less than a week for British lawyers to push pop icon Cliff Richard’s legal victory against the BBC into a privacy argument for mysterious millionaires.

For the media, the July 18 ruling highlighted new limits when reporting the early stages of a police investigation against celebrities. But lawyers brandishing copies of the judgment are already using the decision in their fight to keep secret how a convicted foreign official and his wife amassed their wealth.

Richard won substantial damages against the British Broadcasting Corp. for its coverage of a 2014 police raid on his home following allegations of child sex assault about 30 years ago. Ultimately, the singer’s right to privacy trumped the freedom of the press to report the early stage of an investigation, Judge Anthony Mann said in his judgment…

[Read the full article here]