EPUK member and NUJ stalwart Pete Jenkins has spoken to Amateur Photographer about the implications of last week’s legal ruling concerning unauthorised publication of Catherine Zeta Jones’ wedding photographs.

OK! magazine partially won an appeal when Law Lords ruled that Hello! magazine breached OK!‘s confidentially by publishing images from Zeta Jones’ wedding to Michael Douglas in 2000.

OK! had paid £1m to secure the rights to exclusive coverage of the event but Hello! published unauthorised pictures – thereby spoiling the deal.

Speaking exclusively to Amateur Photographer magazine, Pete Jenkins the NUJ’s vice-chair of the Photographers Sub-Committee said: ‘While there is a certain entertainment value to seeing two specialist paparazzi titles squabbling over images, we mustn’t forget that photographers are the creators here and we do not want them to lose out as a result of this judgement.’

Jenkins added: ‘No-one wants to see legislation which will give individuals the right to dictate what images can or cannot be taken in a public place.

‘But, at the same time, individuals in private dwellings, functions and places should have the security of knowing that their personal lives cannot be intruded upon by sensation-seeking journalists – the caveat being except where this information is of the utmost public interest.’