Max Mosley verdict expected Thursday

A ruling is due on Thursday in the landmark privacy case brought against the News of the World by Max Mosley (pictured), after the newspaper accused him of participating in a Nazi-themed, sado-masochistic orgy with five call-girls (he only disputes the Nazi part). The presiding judge, Mr Justice Eady, known as the Libel Judge, is thought to have informed both parties of his judgement on Wednesday, as it is common practice to give each side the chance to prepare their legal presentations in advance.

Learned opinion believes Eady is likely to have ruled in favour of Mosley, 68, the son of the wartime fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and the head of British motorsport. This is largely down to the near collapse of the NOTW’s case when one of the call-girls failed to testify about the newspaper’s claim that the tryst with the dominatrixes had a Third Reich flavour.

If this is the case, it all comes down to the damages and costs Mosley receives. Editors and media owners are biting their finger-nails, anxious to see what sort of precedent Eady will set on the invasion of privacy.

The trial was not without amusement from a spectator’s point of view. When summing up, the newspaper’s counsel, Mark Warby QC, ridiculed Mosley’s defence team’s assertion that the tryst was a "Carry On Spanking"-style caper. He said of Mosley’s defence team: "There was a general attempt both in the written evidence of the women and in oral evidence to present it as some kind of worthy activity attended by the most strict health and safety precautions, as though it was all being carried out under the guidance of the Bondage and Sadomasochism Regulatory Authority."