'Mosley ruling a dangerous threat to our morals', says former Archbishop

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey said the motor racing chief's High Court triumph was bleak, deeply flawed and hazardous.

He called the thinking behind the judgment an 'anything goes' philosophy that has stripped any sense of morality from the law. Lord Carey said unspeakable and indecent behaviour was no longer counted as significant by the courts, so public figures could ' have their cake and eat it'.

Lord Carey, left, has spoken out against the Max Mosley ruling

The intervention by the former Archbishop, who led the Church of England for 11 years until 2002, reopened the controversy over last week's ruling in which Mr Justice Eady found that it was wrong for the News of the World to expose Mr Mosley's liking for sadomasochistic orgies with paid 'professional dominatrices'.

It came as Mr Mosley, president of the FIA, the ruling body of motorsport, threatened to sue media outlets around Europe and to issue a libel writ against the News of the World.

Lord Carey is the first major religious figure to speak out over the case, in which 68-year-old Mr Mosley won £60,000 from the News of the World after claiming it infringed his privacy.

Current church leaders shied away from giving an opinion yesterday.

• A spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said he would be making no comment;
• An official at the Lambeth Conference, where 670 Anglican bishops are gathered, said: 'We have had no comment from anyone';
• The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, had nothing to say;
• Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks and his officials were unavailable;
• The Muslim Council of Britain declined to give a view.

Woman E: Wife of M15 officer who took part in orgy

Mr Mosley, son of British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, had claimed that human rights law shielded him from any exposure of his sex and bondage orgy with five prostitutes.

The case has been seen as part of a new privacy law being made by judges without reference to Parliament.

In his judgment last week Mr Justice Eady said: 'I accept that such behaviour is viewed by some people with distaste and moral disapproval, but in the light of modern rights-based jurisprudence that does not provide any justification for the intrusion on the personal privacy of the claimant.'

Lord Carey, writing in the News of the World, called the ruling 'a dangerous precedent', with free speech the first victim. He said the courts had created a wholly new privacy law' without public debate or democratic scrutiny.

But Mr Mosley, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, claimed he had been 'the victim of an unlawful act by someone else in the same way as I would be if I was mugged'.

He said he plans to take action in France, Germany and Italy against media outlets that published pictures of his activities without his consent. Mr Mosley successfully persuaded the High Court there was no truth in the News of the World's claim that his orgy had a Nazi theme, even though it involved the German language and prison fantasies.

He insisted: 'Mr Justice Eady recognises that public views changed over time. Modern adults don't care what other people do as long as it's legal, in private and consensual between adults.

'For some people, any form of sex other than the missionary position with the lights out is disgusting. Yet others will do the most outrageous things with several people in the same room. Where do you draw the line in a democratic society, other than obeying the law of the land? That should be the end of the matter.'

There was support for Dr Carey from Church of England evangelicals. The Reverend Rod Thomas, a Plymouth vicar who leads the Reform movement, said: 'If the press is unduly inhibited from reporting on private morality it will very quickly have a public effect. There are crossovers between private activity and public accountability.'

Simon Calvert, of the Christian Institute think-tank, said: 'There is a growing culture of shamelessness which can be reversed only if Christian leaders speak out for what is right. That is what most people expect and hope Christian leaders will do.'

Tory MP Douglas Carswell, a member of the parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee, said: 'If individuals want to behave in a certain way and it is within the law I don't see why anyone should interfere. But it is a different matter to say nobody should be allowed to know what public figures get up to. I don't want a French or Belgian legal system that means kleptocratic politicians can do as they like.'