Max Mosley
Max Mosley became embroiled in a sex scandal in 2008. Reuters

KEY POINTS

  • In 2008, he was accused of taking part in a 'Nazi orgy'
  • He sued, saying that reporting on it was a breach of his privacy.

Former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley has been accused of lying under oath during a privacy trial which centred around his participation in a 'Nazi-themed orgy'.

During the court case in 2008 where he argued that the News of the World report on his participation in the orgy was a breach of his privacy, he denied the existence of a leaflet distributed which claimed that immigrants "brought leprosy, syphilis and TB".

Read more

The leaflet was among a number the Daily Mail reported it had unearthed as it delved into Mosley's past.

The paper said that it was used during a campaign in the Moss Side by-election in 1961 when Mosley was working for a candidate for the party of his father, the controversial far-right figure Sir Oswald Mosley.

The leaflet, which is in two public libraries, is in support of Union Movement candidate Walter Hesketh, and says: "Let us give the coloured people a fair deal by sending them back to good jobs and good wages at home in Jamaica."

Mosley told Channel 4 News that the evidence he gave in 2008 denying the leaflet's existence was true. When asked by the British broadcaster whether he had perjured himself, he said: "That is the most offensive question that you should not ask".

"I have never seen that leaflet, the original, and I would like to see it...I am not sure it is genuine, but if it is genuine, it doesn't reflect my views today."

Mosley is a privacy campaigner and is bankrolling the press regulator Impress and says that the furore over the leaflet is aimed to divert attention away from his attempt to use data protection laws to delete historic articles about him, including those about the orgy he took part in with five prostitutes.

"It (this leaflet) is an attempt by the Daily Mail to distract from what the real issue is which is whether they are breaching the Data Protection Act."

"I have never been a racist, I am not a racist, never will be a racist".

He also told Channel 4 that he would continue to give funds to the Labour party to fund the office of Tom Watson, who told the Mail: "The views expressed by Max as a young man are not the views he holds now."