LONDON - British actress Kate Winslet's husband won a court battle
on Tuesday stopping The Sun newspaper printing photographs of him
"semi-naked" at a private fancy dress party several years ago.
Lawyers for Ned RocknRoll, 34, who married the "Titanic" star last
month, argued that there was no public interest in the Sun publishing
the pictures, that it would be a breach of his privacy and it could lead
to Winslet's children being bullied.
According
to the Press Association, the judge at London's High Court ruled in
favour of RocknRoll and ordered The Sun not to publish the pictures
pending any trial, adding that he would give the reasons for his
decision at a later date.
"We have stopped The
Sun from publishing semi-naked photos of Ned taken by a friend at a
private 21st birthday party a few years ago," the couple said in a
statement.
"The photos are innocent but embarrassing and there is no reason to splash them across a newspaper," they added.
"We recognize that in the internet age privacy is harder and harder to
maintain. But we will continue to do what we can, particularly to
protect Kate's children from the results of media intrusion.
"We refuse to accept that her career means our family can't live a relatively normal life."
Winslet, nominated for six Academy Awards including the best actress
honor she won for "The Reader", has a son and a daughter and has been
married twice before.
She wed RocknRoll, who
changed his name from Abel Smith, in New York in a small, private
ceremony that took even family members by surprise.
RocknRoll is a nephew of airline tycoon Richard Branson and, the court
heard, had been head of marketing at his space travel venture Virgin
Galactic before he took up sheep farming.
His lawyer David Sherborne said RocknRoll was not a public figure and did no court public attention.
"It is simply because he is married to Miss Winslet," Sherborne told
the High Court. "I am sure he would not mind if I described him as a
relative nobody up until the point he married Miss Winslet." — Reuters
source: gmanetwork.com
