NAOMI MOTHER TAKES SWIPE AT 'RACIST' PRESS

Naomi Campbell's mother yesterday criticised the media, saying that press
attacks on her daughter during and after a High Court battle with a tabloid
paper were motivated by racism.

Ms Campbell, 31, won UKP3,500 damages last week after Mr Justice Morland
ruled that the Mirror had breached her rights to confidentiality by
publishing details about her attending Narcotics Anonymous. However, the
judge balanced the verdict by criticising the model for lying in court, a
charge reiterated in several tabloids.

Speaking to the Independent on Sunday, Valerie Campbell yesterday
challenged the Mirror's columnist Sue Carroll to repeat her description of
the model as a "chocolate soldier" to other black people. "That was
blatantly racist. I was disgusted by the Mirror's editor trying to suggest
it was a common phrase with no racial connotations. If Sue Carroll or Piers
Morgan think it's so inoffensive, they should go to Brixton and start
calling black women 'chocolate soldiers' and see what happens."

Valerie Campbell, a fashion designer, argued that editorials in a range of
newspapers after last week's ruling reflected the paper's frustration that
it had been beaten by a "young, black girl".

She said: "They just can't take the fact that they lost the case. They
cannot stand it because a young, black girl has put them under manners and
now they are all ganging up to moan about it."

She praised her daughter's "courageous" decision to seek treatment for her
drug addiction: "I think my daughter was very courageous to go along to an
open meeting like that with ordinary people to admit her addiction in
public. It was a very hard thing for her to stand up and admit her problem
in front of a whole lot of strangers."

Valerie Campbell's comments came as her daughter's lawyers claimed the
final legal bill faced by the Mirror could exceed UKP500,000 - more than
twice the sum quoted until now. Keith Schilling, the model's solicitor,
said that, in addition to the paper's own estimated costs of UKP200,000, he
would pursue a claim for UKP250,000 or more.