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Paul Weller’s wife calls for new laws to protect child privacy rights
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 13 June 2014
The wife of Paul Weller has called for a change in the law to make it a criminal offence for newspapers to publish photos of children without the consent of their parents.
As previously reported, the Wellers successfully sued Mail Online after it published pap photos taken in California showing the one-time Jam man shopping with three of his children and his wife. The singer said the photos were “plainly voyeuristic” and a “blatant impediment to the natural social progress of children”, and were taken despite him specifically asking the photographer to leave them alone.
The Mail argued that: the snapper in question did not violate any Californian laws, the photos were harmless, Weller had discussed his family in interviews, his wife had tweeted photos of their twin sons, and his teenage daughter had modelled with Vogue.
But the court ruled that the Mail, as a UK-based paper, was governed by European privacy law oblivious of where the photos were taken, and that the website had breached those laws by publishing the snaps. Weller was awarded £10,000 in damages, though the Mail vowed to appeal.
Speaking outside the High Court in London yesterday, Hannah Weller said that their case had confirmed the privacy rights of the children of celebrities under European law, but that – while their children were now likely safe from the paparazzo’s lens, having proven their willingness to sue – the tabloids and gossip sites continue to publish a flood of pointless photos showing the offspring of the rich and famous.
To that end, said Weller, “it should be a criminal offence to violate any child’s right to grow up free from media intrusion. Our children are not famous people – most children are not famous”.
According to the Press Gazette, Weller went on: “As it stands, the decision about whether or not to thrust children into the media spotlight lies with the discretion of the editors of money-hungry newspapers and online gossip websites who are often more concerned with their own bottom line than the best interests of children. These people have shown repeatedly that they cannot be trusted to make the right choices and so it is time to take this decision from them and make it a criminal offence to expose children in this way”.
The newspapers – most of them already unhappy with the ruling in the Wellers’ civil case – will definitely fight any moves to make child privacy rights a criminal matter, likely pointing to the ongoing overhaul of voluntary press regulation in the UK post-Hackgate and Leveson. “Give that a try” will be the likely line.
But, Weller told the ‘Today’ programme, not using “a person’s fame or notoriety as full justification to print information about a child’s private life” has long been in the newspaper industry’s voluntary code, “yet they continue to do it almost on a daily basis”.
