Newspaper apologizes for false royals story (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) - One of Britain's most-read newspapers was forced to apologize on Friday after falsely reporting that Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip was suffering from prostate cancer.

London's Evening Standard made the apology after Buckingham Palace complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the August 6 front-page story.

"We now accept that the story was untrue and that he is not suffering from any such condition," the Evening Standard said.

"We unreservedly apologize both to him and to his family for making this distressing allegation and for breaching his privacy."

The decision to report the newspaper to the complaints commission was itself uncommon, but Buckingham Palace said it had done so because the story was not only not true but damaging and was being widely reported by other media.

"Buckingham Palace has always maintained that members of the royal family have a right to privacy, particularly in relation to their personal health," the palace said in a statement.

"For this reason, we have always refused to confirm or deny the persistent rumors that circulate about their health, particularly during the quieter news months."

The Standard's apology came two weeks after a judge made an important privacy ruling in Britain's High Court.

In that decision, Justice David Eady ruled that the tabloid newspaper News of the World had breached the privacy of motor racing chief Max Mosley by revealing his part in German-themed sex orgies with prostitutes.

PAPERS MORE CAUTIOUS

Lawyers said at the time that the ruling, while not a landmark, was likely to make newspapers more cautious about how they reported on the lives of famous people, and could make it easier for celebrities to sue newspapers over privacy.

"Until a few years ago there was no privacy law in this country and each case tried to stretch it a bit further," said Ramona Mehta, a defamation lawyer with the firm Mishcon de Reya.

"The Mosley case was the one that stretched it that bit further still, with the judge quite clear in his reasoning... It's forced editors to be more careful, certainly in a case of this nature, where it's a very high-profile royal."

English law has traditionally been protective of individuals in cases of libel, and those protections now appear to be expanding into the realm of privacy, although lawyers say it will take more cases before a new trend emerges.

In the case of Mosley, the newspaper was ordered to pay 60,000 pounds ($120,000) in damages, a relatively small sum compared to libel cases, although it also had to pay the high legal costs.

"If a newspaper gets a story about a footballer having a sex orgy with a Big Brother contestant, 60,000 pounds probably isn't going to stop them publishing," said Mehta.

But in the case of the royal family, who are favorite fodder for most British newspapers not just the tabloids, editors were likely to tread a lot more carefully, she said.

(Editing by Robert Hart)

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