INTEGRITY IN THE NEWSI hope nobody was convinced by Rupert Butler's recent Comment article (see [2001[ Gazette, 29 November, 16).

In it he castigated Mr Justice Jack for granting an injunction to prevent a tabloid newspaper publishing a story about a married footballer with two mistresses.The point Mr Butler and the media do not want to accept is that there is a fundamental difference between 'the public interest' he claims to defend and 'what interests the public', which is often nasty, sordid, and nothing to do with news.

Freedom of the press is a human right, but in the modern world it is also a privilege that should not be abused for the purpose of humiliating families and causing gratuitous damage to individuals who are committing no criminal offence.Whether a so-called celebrity is holding hands with his mistress in the park or having a six-in-the-bed orgy is essentially a private matter.

These celebrities are often young and may live to regret their mistakes.

Although moral questions arise about their conduct, much greater questions arise over the behaviour of mature newspaper editors who are not interested in reporting news but prefer instead to damage lives for profit.To have described Mr Justice Jack's judgment as a 'charmingly naive Victorian pastiche' demonstrates Mr Butler's contempt for the judiciary, and I have little doubt he was speaking for his tabloid clients as well.Perhaps the main difference between the judge and the tabloids in this case has to do with another Victorian concept - integrity.Robert Boyd, partner, Veale Wasbrough, Bristol