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Max Mosley trial nears conclusion

“There was a general attempt ... 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 Sado-masochism Regulatory Authority.”

— Mark Warby, lawyer for the News of the World

The ingredients are explosive: an affluent Englishman, a handful of dominatrices, a tabloid newspaper and allegations of Nazi role-play.

After a week that combined courtroom drama and British sex farce, a judge will rule on the nature of sadomasochistic sessions involving FIA President Max Mosley and five women.

Were they depraved acts by a powerful public figure, or private sexual encounters shamefully exposed by a prurient press?

Mosley, president of the body that oversees Formula One racing, is suing the News of the World newspaper for invasion of privacy over a story alleging he attended a five-hour Nazi-themed sex session.

The newspaper argues that Mosley’s public profile and “depraved” behavior make the story a matter of public interest.

Summing up the paper’s defense case on Monday, lawyer Mark Warby said the issue at stake was “the fundamental importance in a democratic society of a free press — a free press which may say things which shock and offend.”

Judge David Eady said he hoped to give his ruling next week after he and a packed courtroom of lawyers, journalists and curious onlookers have watched as the sights and sounds of sadomasochism filled Court 13 at London’s neo-Gothic High Court.

The court heard evidence from Mosley and four of the women he met for S&M sessions at an apartment Mosley rented for the purpose.

Lawyers also played covertly recorded videos that showed Mosley being bound and whipped, then relaxing naked with a cup of tea.

The News of the World claims the session, secretly filmed by one of the women involved, had a Nazi theme.

Mosley, 68, told the court he found the idea of Nazi sex fantasies abhorrent. The issue is especially sensitive because he is the son of the late Oswald Mosley, Britain’s best-known fascist politician.

He said he and the women acted out a German prison scenario, with no overtones of the Third Reich.

The two sides have given widely differing views of sadomasochistic role-play with Warby saying Mosley’s legal team was trying to pretend that what the weekly called a ‘sick Nazi orgy’ was “nothing more than hanky-spanky.”

“There was a general attempt ... 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 Sado-masochism Regulatory Authority,” Warby said.

In fact, he said, “there is psychological darkness” behind such activities. “There is, we suggest, true depravity.”
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