Law lords order 'Mirror' to name Brady source

The Daily Mirror newspaper must disclose the source who supplied the medical records of Moors murderer Ian Brady, the House of Lords ruled yesterday.

Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, who gave the lead judgment in an appeal heard by five Law Lords, said medical records were always confidential but this was even more important in the case of the computer database at Ashworth secure hospita.

He said: "The fact that Ian Brady had himself disclosed his medical history did not detract from the need to prevent staff from revealing records.

"The source's disclosure was wholly inconsistent with the security of the records and the disclosure was made worse because it was purchased by a cash payment."

The case arose out of an article published in the Daily Mirror in December 1999 which included verbatim extracts from Brady's medical records while he was on hunger strike in protest at being moved to another ward. The identity of the source, believed to be an Ashworth employee, was not known but the newspaper did know the name of the intermediary whose identity would lead to the source.

MGN Ltd, the newspaper's publishers, said later in a statement that the House of Lords' decision represented a "serious blow to press freedom". It went on: "We have no desire to reveal the source of the story in question, but as part of a public company we cannot expose our-selves to the risk of being held in contempt of court."