According to the Press Complaints Commission, Allegra Versace
Beck made a formal complaint through her solicitors after the
celebrity magazine published an article and photos in September
2004 entitled "Yes, you can be too rich and too thin".
Ms Versace Beck, who inherited a 50% stake in the Versace
designer empire on her 18th birthday, said that the article and
photo intruded into her privacy.
This, she argued, breached a clause in the Commission's Code of
Practice that says "Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her
private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including
digital communications. Editors will be expected to justify
intrusions into any individual's private life without consent."
The complaint has been resolved with the magazine publishing an
apology to Ms Versace Beck.
The magazine also undertook not to repeat the article,
re-publish the photos or publish any further material on her
private life, health or general well being unless authorised by her
or her representatives.
The apology follows a landmark ruling by the European Court of
Human Rights last year. It ruled that publishing paparazzi
photographs of Princess Caroline of Monaco in a public place was a
violation of her right to privacy.
On that occasion, the Court considered that the general public
did not have a legitimate interest in knowing Caroline von
Hannover's whereabouts or how she behaved generally in her private
life even if she appeared in places that could not always be
described as secluded and was well known to the public.
The Court reiterated the fundamental importance of protecting
private life "from the point of view of the development of every
human being's personality" and said that everyone, including people
known to the public, had to have a "legitimate expectation" that
his or her private life would be protected.
