Australian Nicole Kidman in stand-off with paparazzi

Jan 27, 2005

A listening device planted near the harbourside Sydney home of Hollywood actor Nicole Kidman prompted Australia’s richest woman

A listening device planted near the harbourside Sydney home of Hollywood actor Nicole Kidman prompted Australia’s richest woman to take legal action against two local photographers, news reports said.

Lawyer Roland Day said his client and another Sydney photographer had been served with apprehended personal violence orders (APVOs) after the bug was found on Sunday, the very day Kidman arrived in Australia to take up residence in her $9m Darling Point home.

“Ms Kidman appears to be trying to control how the media covers her personal and public life by taking out the APVOs against the photographers,” Day told Australia’s AAP news agency. “The granting of an order in the circumstances would seem to be unduly restrictive and may have the dangerous consequence of encouraging anyone under the scrutiny of the media to do the same thing,” Day said. An APVO is issued when there is no domestic relationship between the parties. The legal manoeuvres bear out the view of Australian police that professional freelance photographers were the likely culprits behind the attempted bugging of the Kidman residence.

Police said they believed the device was linked to the photographers, who have taken up positions outside the Kidman home since the weekend. “It’s not a terribly sophisticated device,” detective inspector Grant Taylor said earlier this week. Police released closed circuit television footage of someone, who looked as though they could have planted the bug. The discovery was made when Kidman’s minders were sweeping the premises ahead of her return to her hometown to start the filming of Eucalyptus.

The feature film, directed by Australia’s Jocelyn Moorhouse, co-stars fellow Oscar winner Russell Crowe and fellow Australian Hugo Weaving.

Inspector Taylor said Kidman was concerned about the attentions of freelance photographers, who had staked out Darling Point in advance of her arrival.
“She also has concerns about the paparazzi and how they might treat her and that’s something I will also be looking into,” Taylor said. Kidman’s father, noted Sydney psychologist Antony Kidman, appealed to the public to give his daughter space. “She is concerned that people will not let her alone,” Dr Kidman told Australia’s AAP news agency.

Kidman has been plagued by unwanted attention in the past. In 1999, an American journalist was jailed after illegally tapping a telephone call between Kidman and then husband Tom Cruise. Kidman and Cruise divorced in 2001.

Kidman is expected to be in Australia for about two months filming Eucalyptus, a screen adaptation of Murray Bail’s acclaimed eponymous novel.

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