Singer
Paul Weller has brought a privacy case on behalf of three of his children whose
faces were “plastered” over a newspaper website.
The
onetime frontman of The Jam and The Style Council was at London’s High Court
with his wife Hannah for the misuse of private information action against
Associated Newspapers.
His
counsel, David Sherborne, told Mr Justice Dingemans that 55-year-old Weller was
there as the father of daughter Dylan, who was 16 when the pictures appeared on
MailOnline in October 2012 and twin boys, John-Paul and Bowie, who were 10
months old.
“It is
not his privacy claim. The claim is brought by three children of this father
who just happens to be well-known as a musician.”
Mr
Sherborne said that the decision to publish the seven unpixelated pictures to
illustrate a story about a “quality time” family shopping outing in Santa
Monica, California, was an unjustified infringement of their right to privacy.
The
pictures were taken by a professional paparazzo who followed Weller and the
children through the streets to a cafe, sometimes using a long lens but
sometimes not, without their consent and despite being asked to stop.
“It is
not about damages, It is about preventing visual images of their faces being
taken in such circumstances being plastered all over a newspaper website and
about preventing a repetititon of such intrusion into their private and family
life.”
Mr
Sherborne said that Hannah Weller, the mother of the twins, had not been in the
public eye before her marriage and had taken steps to prevent full-face images
of her children appearing in the media, to the point of stopping her mother
posting pictures of her first grandchildren.
He asked
what well-known parents of children were meant to do – never take them out in a
public street but keep them locked away?
Photos
taken in the street, and not in circumstances such as premieres or for
promotion, were a “blatant impediment to the natural social progress of
children”, he said.
The
contested hearing, during which Weller is expected to give evidence, is due to
last four days.
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