Public has right to know about Boris Johnson's secret lovechild, court rules

The Mayor of London’s affair with art consultant Helen Macintyre, which resulted in the birth of their daughter Stephanie in 2009, was in the public interest because the electorate was entitled to know about it when considering his fitness for public office, the court ruled.

The judge rejected claims by Miss Macintyre, who had worked for Mr Johnson in an unpaid capacity, in her legal action against the Daily Mail that her child’s paternity should be kept secret.

Stephanie’s father was not identified on her birth certificate, and speculation over the paternity of the child, who has a mop of flaxen hair, grew the summer after she was born in November 2009, the Daily Mail reported.

Mr Johnson's wife Marina, the mother of their four children, is reported to have thrown him out of the house “like a tom cat” over claims that Stephanie was his child.

After Stephanie was born, Miss Macintyre, 39, moved out of the £5 million London home she had shared with her partner, property developer Pierre Rolin, and neither she nor Mr Johnson has ever confirmed or denied that he was the father, according to the newspaper.

Last July, High Court judge Mrs Justice Nicola Davies said the Daily Mail was justified in publishing stories about the secret lovechild because the mayor’s “recklessness” in conducting extramarital affairs, which has resulted in two children being born, called into question his fitness for public office.

The judge ruled after a six-day private hearing in London that her mother had compromised the child's right to privacy by hinting at the identity of the father.

The Appeal Court judges said in their ruling that Miss Macintyre showed an “ambivalent approach” to keeping her daughter's paternity secret, pointing out that at a weekend house party, she had told a senior magazine executive that Mr Johnson, 47, was the father.

The judges also highlighted an interview and photoshoot Miss Macintyre did with Tatler magazine, which contained references to her affair with the mayor and the fact that he was alleged to be Stephanie’s father.

The judge ordered the Daily Mail's publishers, Associated Newspapers, to pay £15,000 in privacy damages for publishing photographs of Stephanie but ordered the baby's legal backers to pay 80 per cent of the newspaper’s legal costs, an estimated £200,000.

Although Miss Macintyre appealed against the decision not to award her damages for details about the affair and the child’s paternity being published, and the refusal to grant an injunction preventing the Daily Mail from reprinting the information, the Court of Appeal rejected her application.

Master of the Rolls Lord Justice Dyson said: “It is not in dispute that the legitimate public interest in the father's character is an important factor to be weighed in the balance against the child's expectation of privacy.

“The core information in this story, namely that the father had an adulterous affair with the mother, deceiving both his wife and the mother's partner, and that the child, born about nine months later, was likely to be the father's child, was a public interest matter which the electorate was entitled to know when considering his fitness for high public office.”

The application for an injunction was dismissed, with the court ruling that “much that has been published...in relation to the baby's paternity remains available online”.

“The mother accepted in cross-examination that any woman who embarked on an affair with the father was ‘playing with fire’ and that such an affair was bound to attract ‘very considerable media attention’.”