A British judge yesterday expanded the law on privacy by ruling the Mirror newspaper was wrong to photograph Naomi Campbell leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. A recovering addict applauds this curb on press freedom.
Naomi Campbell's court battle with Trinity Mirror newspapers begs important questions, not only about the relationship between celebrity and drug abuse, but also about our perceptions of drug addiction and moral integrity.
As a member of Narcotics Anonymous who has lived in London for several years, I was surprised by the media furore that has encircled Ms Campbell's misadventures - not because of the mudslinging in the courtroom, but because so much attention is being paid to her troubles at all.
Anyone who has attended meetings in London of Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous can tell you that they are teaming with A-List celebrities, and it seems odd that the "supermodel" has been singled out for particular attention. The lengthy list of male stars - and indeed white female stars - in recovery do not seem to make such attractive headlines.
There has long been a tacit understanding in the London press that the sanctity of recovery fellowships like NA and AA be respected because the welfare of so many people depends on them not being subject to such media scrutiny.
It is also plain that recovery fellowships, by their very nature, have no way to defend themselves from such attention. Anyone can walk into an NA meeting and sit down and listen. They need not introduce themselves and they will not be asked to justify their attendance.
Indeed when I first moved to London I went to an NA meeting and, being a new face in the crowd, was approached by another member at the end of the session. The man who walked over to me was an "A-list" actor but approached me simply as one addict to another. Not having seen me before he thought I was new to NA and wanted to offer his support and contact details.
It is precisely because of this dynamic of open, trusting support that celebrities in NA an AA are so vulnerable to the press and that the Mirror's decision to send a photographer to stalk those leaving a meeting in Chelsea was such a crude and unjustifiable violation.
The healing power of recovery fellowships is based in "de-shaming". It is based on the fact that troubled people can share their "worst stuff" to a room full of other recovering addicts and are met with love and acceptance. We all have secrets and it takes courage to expose those secrets.
It is for this reason that the anonymous in Narcotics Anonymous is so important. NA has to be a safe place and Mirror Newspapers knowingly undermined that safeness for the sake of a good headline. In doing so they were damaging an organisation that saves many thousands of lives.
When Mirror editor Piers Morgan claimed that Naomi Campbell gav up her right to privacy by courting media attention, his arguments rang hollow. The issues at stake in the case brought by Miss Campbell were bigger than her "right to privacy" - or moral integrity - and Trinity Mirror knows this.
The fact that so many stars do wind up in the rooms of NA and AA must also challenge our perceptions of what celebrity actually means.
Dr John Bradshaw, one of the leading figures in the US recovery movement and in the treatment of addiction, argues that inner shame lies at the heart of compulsivity and, correspondingly, addiction.
According to Bradshaw, an addict is an individual with "a pathological relationship to mood-altering substances or behaviours, with life-damaging consequences". An addict, put simply, is a person whose default emotional state is painful and who is therefore compelled to mood-alter that pain however possible.
This shame may be caused by anything from actual childhood abuse to simply having emotionally unavailable parents, but the result is always the same - the individual feels that they are somehow inherently defective. And naturally, they seek to escape that painful inner state. The misfortune is that they look outside themselves for ways to feel better inside.
It is no surprise therefore that many addicts will pursue fame and celebrity vigorously in a bid to change how they feel.
And it is here that one of society's great misunderstandings of addiction lies. Such inner pain can be a powerful motivator and we often miss the fact that a great many addicts become hugely successful in the eyes of society.
It is a leap for most of us to see that the chief executive of the company, or the star of the latest blockbuster, may be just as sick as the addict sleeping rough.
The law on privacy in relation to the publication of photographs has not yet been tested in the Irish courts.
However, other aspects of privacy have, and the right to privacy has been found to exist in the Constitution. The two main areas covered were marital privacy, upheld in the Magee case, which found that the right to marital privacy included the right to use contraception, and the privacy of telephone calls, which was upheld in Kennedy and Arnold v Ireland. Here two journalists successfully sued the state for intercepting their telephone conversations.
There is also a right to privacy in the European Convention on Human Rights, which will be taken into account by Irish courts.
The issue of the publication of intrusive photographs without permission was raised in a recent case, when Bono sued the Star newspaper for publishing photographs of him on a beach abroad. However, because the case was settled out of court, no case-law was established.
Irish citizens are still waiting for a case which would clarify the extent to which the media could invoke the right of freedom of expression (also a constitutional right) against the right to privacy.
We are inclined as a society to dismiss the struggles of people like Miss Campbell when we see their stories in the tabloids. But we have a responsibility to look beyond our assumptions and see that they, just like us, are deeply flawed and vulnerable people and that their difficulties are real.
When Trinity Mirror sought to take the moral high-ground over their treatment of Miss Campbell they failed in their duty to deliver the whole picture to their public. They also attacked an unwell individual. In the 21st century such a stance is more than ignorant - it is absurd.
It does not take a qualified psychotherapist to see that there are reasons why a person behaves in a way that earns them a reputation as a temperamental diva.
I could not help but feel that there was one fundamental difference between the two parties who slugged it out in London's Royal Courts: one of them has found the strength of character to confront her failings in an attempt to better herself; the other seemed interested only in ripping off all and sundry in the pursuit of a shallow and short-lived personal gain.
And so we must ask ourselves which of these behaviours we associate with a drug-addicted, neurotic diva and which befits a powerful media institution with a duty of comprehensive honesty to the public.
Which of these two parties, I wonder, exhibited behaviour that you might describe as "sick"?
• The identity of the author is known to The Irish Times
Irish Privacy laws limited
There law on privacy in relation to the publication of photographs has not yet been tested in the Irish courts. But other aspects of privacy have been found to exist in the Constitution.
The two main areas covered were marital privacy, upheld in the Magee case, which found that the right to privacy included the right to use contraception, and the privacy of telephone calls, which was upheld when Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold sued teh State over their telephones being tapped. There is a right to privacy in the European Convention on Human Rights, which will be taken into account by Irish courts.
The issue of the publication of intrusive photographs without permission was raised in a recent case, when Bono sued the Star newspaper for publishing photographs of him on a beach abroad. However, because the case was settled out of court, no case-law was established.Irish citizens are still waiting for a case which would clarify the extent to which the media could invoke the right of freedom of expression (also a constitutional right) against the right to privacy.
By Carol Coulter