Supermodel Naomi Campbell's victory last week in her House of Lords breach of confidence case against the Daily Mirror was broadly welcomed by lawyers this week.

Timothy Pinto, a media and entertainment lawyer at City firm Taylor Wessing, said: 'This is a further step in the trend of English courts to protect a person's personality.

The Campbell judgment gives full recognition that English law can protect a person's privacy from disclosure of private information by the press.

'But the court must always balance the right of privacy against the right of freedom of expression.

So if, for example, a person has misled the public, the press will usually be entitled to set the record straight.'

Sarah Webb, a partner at national firm Russell Jones & Walker, said: 'This is good news all round.

For claimants it gives clarity now that the Law Lords have recognised the laws of privacy...

it is good news that there is a line over which newspapers shouldn't go.'

Amber Melville-Brown, a consultant with London-based David Price Solicitors and Advocates and the Gazette's media correspondent, said: 'The court has fired a warning shot across the bows of the media that invasive journalism, prying into people's private lives and dishing up details to the public, is not acceptable.

And that is whether the subjects are celebrities or not.'

Alasdair Pepper, a partner with Peter Carter-Ruck & Partners, said: 'I think the judgment is good and right because everyone is entitled to the right to privacy, particularly for matters relating to their medical affairs, and I don't think it matters who it might be.'

Jeremy Fleming