F1 chief seeks new privacy laws after orgy case

Motor racing chief Max Mosley wants Europe to toughen up media privacy laws after he was awarded £60,000 in damages because a newspaper published details of his role in a sado-masochistic orgy.

The head of Formula One's governing body will tomorrow ask the European Court of Human Rights to force newspapers to notify individuals before publishing information about private lives, Mosley's lawyer said in a statement yesterday.

Mosley did not deny taking part in the German-themed sex session with five prostitutes, but said his privacy was violated by The News of the World tabloid newspaper reporting of it.

"It has already been established in the High Court that Mr Mosley was the subject of an illegal and devastating invasion of his private life by the News of the World," lawyer Dominic Crossley said.

"The only effective remedy would have been to prevent the publication in the first place by means of an injunction; but because he did not know about the article beforehand, the opportunity of an injunction was not open to him."

Crossley said if the application to the European court was successful "everyone in the UK will equally share in the right to have an editor's decision to publish reviewed by a judge before irreparable damage can be done."