Max Mosley sued newspaper to prove 'Nazi orgy' story was a lie

Damages: Max Mosley won his High Court privacy case

Max Mosley took the News of the World to court for its "sick Nazi orgy" story about him because he was so keen to "demonstrate they were liars", he said today.

The ex-Formula One chief told the Leveson inquiry he had been advised that if he lost his High Court case, it could cost him £1 million or more and that even if he won, it would still cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

He was also reminded that "taking the matter to court, the entire private information would be rehearsed again", he said. But, he went on: "I thought what they have done is so outrageous I wanted to get these people into the
witness box and demonstrate they were liars. And the only way to do this was to put up with this extremely unpleasant process."

Mr Mosley, 71, was the subject of a front-page article in the now-defunct Sunday tabloid in March 2008, under the headline "Formula 1 boss has sick Nazi orgy with 5 hookers". He was awarded a record £60,000 in privacy damages over the story.

Today the inquiry heard that a News of the World reporter behind the article coached a prostitute in how to secretly video Mr Mosley making a Nazi salute.

The hearing was told chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, at the centre of the hacking scandal, ordered the woman to ensure she captured Mr Mosley making a Nazi salute and saying "Sieg heil" on a secret lapel camera.

Mr Mosley said: "Thurlbeck showed her how to fit it and how to work it. This rehearsal was recorded on tape."

He went on: "The Nazi allegation was completely untrue and, to me, enormously damaging. I was outraged by it."

He said that after the story appeared, Thurlbeck emailed at least two of the women offering a "substantial amount of money" if they would co-operate in a second story emphasising the supposed Nazi theme. However all of the five women refused to speak about the supposed Nazi links.

Mr Mosley, who stood down as Formula One boss in 2009, said his lawyers had taken action in "22 or 23" countries and against "hundreds" of websites to get the video removed. He said tabloids had no right to expose people's sexual practices.

"Sexual behaviour covers a whole variety of things. When you start analysing it, what you might like, somebody else might hate, and vice versa, so where would it stop? The rational thing is to say that provided it's adults, and provided it's in private, provided everybody consents - genuinely consents - then it's nobody else's business."

He said he was 68 when the story was published and it diminished everything else he had done in his life, including work on reducing road deaths.

"However long I live now, that is the number one thing people think of when they hear my name. It really matters."

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