German dominatrix denies Nazi overtones to Mosley sessions
· Woman wore Luftwaffe jacket and suspenders · Formula one boss 'merely acting out prison scenario'
* Helen Pidd * The Guardian, * Wednesday July 9, 2008
A German dominatrix who was paid £500 by motor racing boss Max Mosley to act out sadomasochistic scenarios admitted at the high court yesterday that she had dressed up for him in a Luftwaffe jacket and suspenders and barked orders in her mother tongue, but denied there were any Nazi connotations to their session.
The woman, identified in court only as Woman B, was appearing as a witness for the 68-year-old motor racing boss, who is suing the News of the World for accusing him of taking part in what the paper described as a "sick Nazi orgy" with five women, including the German woman.
Mosley firmly denies this allegation, maintaining it was merely a harmless private party between friends - albeit one for which he paid eaxch of the other participants £500. He claims the newspaper grossly invaded his privacy.
In court yesterday Woman B insisted there was no Nazi flavour to the gathering. "It is an insult and offence if a newspaper equates German with being Nazi - my grandparents were not members of that party," she said, adding that the Luftwaffe jacket was a modern one.
They were merely acting out a prison scenario, she said. But under cross-examination she admitted that when one of the other women who was playing a prisoner being punished cried out "but we are the Aryan race, the blondes", the word "Aryan" could be associated with no other historical period than the second world war.
Woman A, who spoke that line, claimed not to know what the word "Aryan" meant and had merely blurted it out on the spur of the moment. She told the court yesterday that she had known Mosley for two years as "Mike", and asked the judge, Mr Justice Eady, for permission to refer to him by that name.
Woman A compared sadomasochism (S&M) to the feeling experienced after running a marathon, and said she and Mosley regularly "egged each other on" to see who could take the most pain. She saw him around twice a month for S&M, she said.
Mosley had given her £35,000 to pay for the rent and refurbishment of the basement flat in Chelsea where the News of the World gained their secret footage. It was filmed by Woman E, who is due to give evidence for the newspaper today.
It was an occasionally rowdy hearing. The News of the World's legal team complained that it had descended into pantomime when Woman A offered to model a prison uniform produced by Mosley's QC. The court had previously heard that Woman A had bought these costumes from a joke shop. Occasionally Woman A's descriptions of the S&M "scene" bordered on the banal. When asked by Mosley's counsel David Sherborne how she thought up scenarios for her sessions, she said: "It's like being in the pub with your friends and it's a lovely sunny day and you say 'oh, why don't we go for a picnic tomorrow'."
Another dominatrix, a PhD student known as Woman B, said: "I would rather do CP [corporal punishment] a lot more than go to the dentist." She said that she had met Mosley eight or nine times for S&M or CP and had been on two all-expenses-paid trips to visit him in Monaco.
Asked for her reaction to the News of the World's description of the activities being "grotesque and brutal", Woman D said: "Well, grotesque, I do not think so... It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoy it."
Giving evidence for the second day, Mosley continued to insist there was nothing sinister about his orgy.
He said that if he had asked for a Nazi theme, he would have been deeply disappointed to be greeted, as he was, with the phrase, "welcome to Chelsea". After the four dominatrices had finished giving their evidence the defence called their first witness, the News of the World editor, Colin Myler.
Myler defended his decision to print the story, saying that Mosley's elected position as head of the FIA, formula one's governing body, meant that he was a public figure.
Myler said he had not been informed in advance that his chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, was planning on fitting out Woman E with a hidden camera. But he said that if he had been asked to give the go-ahead he would have said yes - even though at that point no one at the paper had any inkling of "Nazi" overtones. Initially, they thought they were going to covertly film a five-hour S&M orgy in a Chelsea flat between Mosley and five women.
Myler said he knew it was deeply unpleasant to covertly film someone else having sex because it had once happened to him. The case continues.
· This article was amended on Wednesday July 9 2008. We originally referred to the reporter Neville Thurlbeck as Neville Thirlwell. This has been corrected.
About this article
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday July 09 2008 on p8 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 10:11 on July 09 2008.