MODEL'S REGRET OVER JUDGE WHO CALLED HER LIAR

NAOMI CAMPBELL appeared to admit last night in Los Angeles that she had
committed perjury at the High Court after a judge said that he had
considered her evidence in the privacy case with caution.

Told that Mr Justice Morland ruled he was "satisfied that she lied on oath"
at one point, she replied, "I do apologise to the judge for that." The
supermodel said the reason she gave evidence was "because that's privacy,
and I didn't want to bring a focus on it".

The judge said the lie was about her rushed admission to hospital in Gran
Canaria. He also "had doubts" about the accuracy of her descriptions of
assaults on an assistant and her dealings with Matthew Freud, the publicist.

Miss Campbell used an ITV interview to insist she was no longer "using
drugs" although she refused to say for how long she had been free of
narcotics. "I care to keep that private."

She was staying in America, she said, because it was where she felt safe to
go to a recovery meeting if ever she felt "vulnerable".

Miss Campbell said that The Mirror story and picture had made her feel
"raped". She said: "I felt that if I can't take care of this problem I
can't make myself better." But the court case was probably "something I'd
never do again".

The model said she had hardly slept for a month. "It was hard. I didn't
expect it to be the way it's blown up like this. I just wanted to go and
fight for something I thought was very important to me, having the privacy
to take care of myself and to better my life, to change the way I was and
become the way I am now."

The Narcotics Anonymous story was "very damaging" because if she had felt
strong enough "to come out" and talk about it "I would have done so".

Miss Campbell, 31, said: "Recovery is something that takes time. You feel
that you're getting better in the right direction. I wasn't hiding. But
first of all an addict had to admit to themselves that they have a problem
before they can admit it to anybody else. That is the first step."

Piers Morgan, editor of The Mirror, which is having to pay Miss Campbell
UKP3,500 in damages plus possibly UKP70,000 in legal costs, hardly blinked
at the judgment. "I only wish the judge had put an order on us never to
mention Naomi Campbell again." He said: "I'm bored with the whole damned
thing. If I never run another story about Naomi Campbell it will be too
soon. I think she's a washed-up old has-been."

Noting that she was in Los Angeles, he said: "So much for her point of
principle. From what I understand she couldn't even be bothered to turn up
for the result."

Mr Morgan pounced on the fact that the judge said he was "satisfied" she
had lied in the witness box under oath.

"As she cracks open the champagne, she might consider this: a knock on the
door from the police on a perjury charge that could get her seven years in
the slammer, and maybe that's what she really deserves in coming here -
lying through her back teeth and winning some ludicrous pyrrhic victory."

He insisted that the outcome was "a complete joke" as the damages were
"derisory." He said all she had won was "a small technical point of law in
relation to confidence which we will be disputing".

He said: "This is a case that should never have been brought. It is quite
clear that the judge thought we had every right to say she was a drug
addict. We had every right to tell the public that she was having
treatment. The only thing we couldn't do - and this was what the whole case
came down to - was say she was going to Narcotics Anonymous."