Hello! accused of 'unpleasant' wedding coverage

Hello! went out of its way to make its coverage of Catherine Zeta Jones' wedding "as unpleasant as possible," the high court heard today.

Michael Tugendhat QC, representing Ms Zeta Jones and her husband Michael Douglas, accused the magazine of "humbug" in its response to a law suit brought by the Hollywood couple, who are suing Hello! for publishing six sneaked photographs of their November 2000 wedding.

"There's an awful lot of humbug in this case," said Mr Tugendhat.

"It's very clear from the whole context in which the photographs were published that... everything was done to make the whole feature as unpleasant as possible."

Mr Tugendhat claimed Hello! was wrong to suggest Ms Zeta Jones overreacted to the publication of the pictures.

"For Hello! to turn around and say Miss Zeta Jones is exaggerating is humbug," Mr Tugendhat said.

"There's no explanation for the form in which this feature was put together other than intent to cause offence," he added.

Mr Tugendhat also claimed Rupert Thorpe, the paparazzo photographer who took the unauthorised pictures, was guilty of "trespass, defeat and breach of an implied contract".

He described how Mr Thorpe, dressed in a dinner jacket, had gained access to the wedding despite the tight security arrangements.

"There's two effective means by which he might have done it. He might have tricked the security people or he might have suborned someone to let him enter," Mr Tugendhat said.

"It's a very striking feature of this case that the defendants haven't made any effort at all to find out how these photographs were taken," he added.

The judge, Mr Justice Lindsay, commented that Eduardo Sanchez Junco, Hello!'s Spanish owner, had indicated a "Nelsonian knowledge" of how the pictures came to be taken.

Mr Tugendhat went on to argue an arrangement had existed for the paparazzi photographs to be sold to Hello!.

He pointed to the fact that Philip Ramey - the Californian paparazzo who masterminded the taking of the pictures - had asked Hello! for $10,000 for the photographs the summer before the wedding.

"There's no doubt that Mr Ramey wanted $10,000 for taking something. He wouldn't have done that unless he thought he was being asked to do it. It shows he was responding to a request," Mr Tugendhat claimed.

Mr Justice Lindsay said it was possible to imagine a scenario where no definite arrangements existed but Hello! had asked to be given first refusal on the pictures.

However, Mr Tugendhat argued the fact the paparazzo invoiced Hello! for $10,000 showed there was "some kind of agreement to that effect".

Mr Tugendhat added that, even if the photographs had not been commissioned in the summer of 2000, they were certainly commissioned the week before the wedding, which took place at the New York Plaza Hotel in November 2000.

He said Hello! had made "an elaborate and expensive arrangement" for the weekend of the wedding, including laying on extra staff, organising an increased print run of 100,000 copies and two aircraft to transport the magazine late.

Mr Tugendhat said Hello! would not have made this arrangement "unless they had a firm prospect of receiving photographs from inside the wedding".

"There were no questions asked when the photographs arrived," he said.

He added no one at Hello! showed any "disapproval or surprise" about the unauthorised photographs.

"It was clearly a matter of total indifference as to whether they had been taken unlawfully or not," he said.

"Nobody seemed to be in the slightest bothered by what happened either contemporaneously or now."

The case continues.