Paul Weller didn't win damages from the Mail

16 April 2014

Singer Paul Weller's children have been awarded damages after the Mail Online published photographs of them in a café and also out shopping in Los Angeles in 2012.

Paul Weller contested — acting on behalf of his children — that private information had been misused and that the Data Protection Act had been breached.

But not everyone reported the result of the case correctly. The BBC, for instance, claimed "Paul Weller wins £10,000 damages". The lawyer and writer David Allen Green tweeted this and other examples:

"Singer Paul Weller wins £10,000 in damages" says various news outlets. He didn't. His children did: para 200 of http://t.co/iU7HQc68ov"

Weller was acting as the 'litigation friend' to his children in this case, but the judgment is clear that the award of damages was not to him. This was a fundamental point on the facts of the case. The legal claim was about the privacy rights of children, and not adults.

H/T and thanks to David Allen Green for his help.

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