Fugitive
film director Roman Polanski has won his bid to avoid coming to the UK
to give evidence in a libel action against Vanity Fair .
By a
three-to-two majority the law lords overturned an Appeal Court ruling
that if Polanski wants to give evidence he should come to the UK to do
so, rather than be allowed to give his evidence by video link.
Polanski,
71, sought permission not to attend court in person because he fears
that if he does, the US could then take steps to extradite him in
relation to his admission in 1977 to having had unlawful sex with a
13-year-old girl.
Lord Nicholls, one of the law lords who allowed
his appeal said: “I respectfully consider the Court of Appeal fell into
error by having insufficient regard to Mr Polanski’s right to bring
these proceedings in this country, even though he is a fugitive from
justice.”
Related
The pending libel action centres on an article which
claimed he propositioned a woman in a New York restaurant after
stopping there on the way to the funeral of his murdered wife, Sharon
Tate. Condé Nast, publishers of Vanity Fair, deny libel.
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