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Spinning from the grave? Mosley is new f ilm’s hero

By Michael Gillard

ANTI- PRESS campaigner Max Mosley is to be lionised in a bigscreen documentary made by a film company of which he was a shareholder.

Mosley: It’s Complicated has been billed as an independent film ahead of its scheduled release in cinemas next month. But documents show the former Formula 1 chief, who died last month aged 81, had a stake in the production firm, Media Diamond Ltd, with his wife.

Their financial interest in the company is not declared in an advance copy of the 90-minute documentary seen by The Mail on Sunday.

The film focuses largely on his efforts to cut road deaths in India by improving car safety and his campaign for press regulation after he won £60,000 in damages from the News of the World. The now-defunct paper was ruled to have breached his privacy by revealing a sadomasochistic orgy with five prostitutes in 2008.

But questions about his father, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, and his own involvement in far-Right politics are scant. Asked about his father’s views, Mr Mosley says: ‘Everything he did… he did because he thought it would be for the benefit of other people.’

The documentary features an interview with Bernie Ecclestone, who teamed up with Mr Mosley to revolutionise F1. The billionaire apologises for not supporting his friend after the sex scandal and reveals he suggested to Margaret Thatcher that she should give Mr Mosley a job in her Cabinet, adding: ‘He could have been an excellent Prime Minister for the UK but, when pushed, he thought his father’s history might have held him back.’ Actor Hugh Grant, who supported Mr Mosley’s crusade against newspapers, also lauds him, although there is no room for comment from anti-racism groups or those in the newspaper industry who are heavily criticised.

Mr Mosley alleges that one or more of three F1 figures may have orchestrated the News of the World sting, but does not name them or provide any evidence of collusion.

He denies a claim made by a friend that he leaked a photograph of JeanMarie Balestre, the former president of F1’s governing body, wearing a

‘He could have been an excellent Prime Minister’

Nazi uniform during a bitter struggle for control of the sport.

Publicising the film, director Michael Shevloff calls Mr Mosley ‘an extraordinary man’ who saved tens of thousands of lives with his work on car safety. He said the work was ‘completely independently conceived, created and edited’ and Mr Mosley ‘had no editorial input or control’.

Asked why it dwelled on road safety rather than Mr Mosley’s far-Right links, he added: ‘The film is my portrait of his life and an account of the time that we followed him. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I believe the film speaks for itself.’

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2021-06-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

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