It is a curious, if familiar paradox that the most salacious of British national newspapers should also be the most judgmental. Wearing their self-righteousness like a Victorian maiden’s bonnet, they gleefully plaster their front page with all the unedifying intimate details of a subject’s sexual behaviour, in the interests of maximum titillation of their readers, while attempting to justify it as in the interest of the public.

The case between Max Mosley and the News of the World, heard last week in the High Court, has clearly demonstrated this hypocrisy. Yesterday in his closing submissions, their counsel, Mark Warby told the court how his clients had carefully counted the number of strokes/lashes Mosley had received in their covert video of the events. Their stable-mate, The Times, reported it all this morning, adding in a jocular tone that Mosley had also received “six of the best” with a martial arts cane.

Almost any intimate human sexual encounter, if reported unsympathetically can sound ridiculous. There are many widely practised sexual techniques that can be painful, and may appear obscene in a printed account. Until not so long ago, sexual activities between homosexual men were considered and reported as depraved, where now it would be thought quite improper to hold these up as being unnatural or worthy of scorn.

More than this, it really is not the function of the News of the World, or any other human being to judge another’s sexual behaviour, so long as it involves only consenting adults.

Conceivably, Mosley is to be understood, not jeered at by journalists like Neville Thurlbeck.

Who knows why Mosley enjoys, or needs this kind of treatment? Who knows, for example, what psychological damage might have been done to a baby whose mother was taken away from him to prison? Who knows what ridicule, and vicious hurt the boy suffered on his father’s account at the hands of his fellow pupils at school?

The paper justified its “revelations” in court by claiming:

1. That Mosley was engaged in a criminal act of assault.

2. He was unsuitable to remain as president of the FIA.

James Price, Mosley’s counsel pointed out in a flawless display of advocacy that there had been no mention of either justification in the highly graphic reports of the S&M sessions.

Evidence heard during last week from editor Colin Myler and Thurlbeck, and the non-appearance of key NotW witness, Woman E, who had been paid by the paper to operate the covert camera, seem to suggest that the ‘Nazi’ element, so crucial to their case, had been an invention of their own, and a deliberate attempt to mislead their readers.

Mr Justice Eady will deliver his judgement next week.

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