Sun’s decision to pay damages and retract stories about ‘threesome’ celebrity a ‘massive climbdown’

The Sun on Sunday has agreed to pay damages to a celebrity only referred to as ‘PJS’, who won the right to keep his name out of a “kiss and tell” story at the Supreme Court in May this year.

The celebrity took legal action after The Sun sought to reveal his involvement in a three-way sexual encounter. The Supreme Court ruled that there was no public in interest in making the information public, and also cited concerns about the couple’s children.

News Group Newspapers has agreed to pay a “specified sum” for costs and damages and to not publish any material identifying the celebrity.

In court documents PJS and his spouse, referred to as ‘YMA’, were described as “well-known individuals in the entertainment business”.

Press reform campaign group Hacked Off said The Sun’s decision to end the long-running litigation with a payout and retraction was a “massive climbdown”

Hacked Off executive director Evan Harris said: “Once the Sun’s spurious public interest justification was thrown out by the High Court, it stood liable for the privacy intrusion.

“Even if it had then been allowed to publish – on the basis of existing internet publication – it would have faced ‘exemplary damages’ for deliberately intruding on the privacy of people in order to generate profits from so doing.

“The real issue here, however, is what would happen to the everyday victims of press intrusion that Hacked Off works with – the vast majority of press victims, who do not have the deep pockets needed to take on the Murdoch press and other large newspaper groups who would trample over their rights.

“That is where the ‘section 40 costs protections’ enacted by Parliament after Leveson would prove so crucial for access to justice for the public at large. If someone had an arguable case they would know that, by choosing to deny them Leveson-style low-cost arbitration and forcing them into Court, the newspapers would have to pay the costs of the High Court process.”