@Viviennemary
A Downing Street spokesman has given a comment on the verdict. They seemed to disspprove and supported the freedom of the press
. Pretty bad she wasn't admonished for lying in her statement. Disgraceful in fact. Id say this was far from over.
Disagree with that interpretation of their comments. In any event, they have clearly failed to understand the judgement. The court was clear that it was open to the Mail to report on the letter and reproduce a small portion of it. The problem was reproducing nearly half of it in an article that clearly wasn't about what the Mail tried to claim in court. Whatever the Mail thinks, this was not in any way an attack on the freedom of the press. This was a perfectly ordinary judgement balancing the rights of the press to freedom of speech against the individual's right to privacy. It follows the approach taken by the European Court of Human Rights, whose judgements are binding on us.
We heard similar whinging from sections of the press when Cliff Richard won his case against the BBC. The issue, as usual, is that journalists wanting to sell papers have lost sight of the difference between things that are in the public interest and things that are interesting to the public.
It is not in any way bad that she wasn't "admonished for lying", particularly since there is no proof that it was a lie rather than a lapse of memory, since it concerned a single exchange with Knauf. The courts don't generally admonish witnesses for lying, even when it is clear they are doing so. See, for example, Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd where one of the Post Office witnesses, Angela van den Bogerd, gave evidence that was clearly untrue, leading the judge to comment that he would only accept her evidence if it was "clearly and uncontrovertibly corroborated by contemporaneous documents". He did not admonish her at all.
It may not be over. The Mail may take it to the Supreme Court and even to the ECHR if it wishes. I would be gobsmacked if either court supported the Mail.