Sir Cliff Richard has won a High Court privacy claim against the BBC for its coverage of the police raid on his home.
Ruling in Sir Cliff Richard v BBC and Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [2018] EWHC 1837 (Ch), Mr Justice Mann held that the BBC and South Yorkshire Police (SYP) violated Sir Cliff’s rights both in privacy and under the Data Protection Act 1998. He awarded Sir Cliff £210,000 in general damages, splitting the damages 35%/65% between SYP and the BBC respectively. Further damages are yet to be assessed.
Sir Cliff was the subject of a police raid regarding alleged historic sexual offences in August 2014. Investigations were dropped in 2016 and no charges were ever brought. The BBC filmed the raid, including footage from a helicopter above Sir Cliff’s home.
In 2017, he settled with SYP who paid £400,000 damages and £300,000 in costs. However, the BBC continued to fight the claim, contending that it was justified because it had rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
Mann J acknowledged that there is ‘a very significant public interest in the fact of police investigations into historic sex abuse, including the fact that those investigations are pursued against those in public life’. However, he concluded that ‘the public interest in identifying those persons does not, in my view, exist in this case. If I am wrong about that, it is not very weighty and is heavily outweighed by the seriousness of the invasion’.
Mark Lewis, partner at Seddons, said the decision was ‘a huge step forward in privacy law that publishers and broadcasters cannot just trample on the rights of individuals.
‘The days of police forces tipping off broadcasters before arrests must be over. When an arrest is seen the damage is done.’
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