The estranged wife of the Marquess of Northampton has brought a privacy claim over phone conversations secretly recorded by her elderly father’s live-in partner and given to the peer.
Mr Justice Tugendhat, at London’s High Court, said the case was “quite unlike” any other proceedings he had come across.
The judge had been asked by 65-year-old Lord Northampton to transfer the action for breach of confidence and misuse of private information, brought by his fifth wife, Pamela, and her 86-year-old father, James Haworth, to the Family Division to be consolidated with ongoing divorce proceedings.
Lady Northampton, who married Spencer Compton, the 7th Marquess, in December 1990, and Mr Haworth want substantial damages – including aggravated and exemplary damages – from her husband, who filed for divorce in November, and Suzanne Shipwright, who has lived with Mr Haworth for many years and made the recordings from October to December last year.
Read more on Northampton Chronicle & Echo.