manchester showbiz
Friday, 3rd February 2006
Kate's court bid failsSUPERMODEL Kate Moss today failed in a courtroom bid to prevent recent allegations of cocaine use being aired in her forthcoming libel case over a claim that she once snorted so much of the drug she fell into a coma.The 32-year-old launched a High Court action for damages after Channel 5 broadcast an allegation relating to an incident back in 2001 during a programme entitled The Truth About Kate Moss, which was shown on January 27 last year. Her defamation case, which is expected to go to trial before a jury between October and December this year, will centre around a claim that at a charity fashion event in Barcelona the model shared lines of cocaine and fell into a coma in her hotel room. In a pre-trial ruling today, Mr Justice Eady, sitting in London, gave the go-ahead to lawyers acting for the television company to use in their defence allegations of cocaine use which appeared in a national newspaper last September. On September 15 Moss appeared in a series of photographs in the Daily Mirror, taken at a recording studio in Chiswick, west London. The Daily Mirror claimed she snorted "line after line" of the Class A drug in the company of her then boyfriend, Pete Doherty. On September 22 she issued a public apology following the allegations and said she was taking steps to address her "personal issues". On January 31 this year she was interviewed under caution by detectives. At the High Court today, Matthew Nicklin, counsel for Channel Five Broadcasting, successfully argued that the defendant should be able to rely on the allegations, and her public apology, in its defence. He said: "The present application arises because the claimant (Moss) wishes to prevent the defendant, as part of its defence of any defamatory sting conveyed by the programme, from proving the full truth of her cocaine abuse." Mr Nicklin submitted that the real issue in the case was whether she has taken cocaine, "not the venue of her activities or even when she did it". Channel 5's case at trial will be that Moss "was a serious cocaine abuser". David Sherborne, counsel for Moss, told the court that the allegation that she had taken a "vast" quantity of cocaine in Barcelona in 2001 and had to be revived from a coma was "wholly untrue and seriously defamatory". A spokesman for Channel 5 said after the hearing: "We are pleased the court has agreed with our submission that the footage of Kate Moss allegedly taking cocaine can be used in our defence of her action for defamation over allegations of cocaine abuse in the programme, The Truth About Kate Moss."
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