THE film director Roman Polanski is to give evidence via a videolink from Paris at his libel trial against Vanity Fair magazine to avoid extradition to the United States.

The law lords said yesterday that Mr Polanski, who has been wanted in the US since 1977 for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, should not be denied access to justice just because he fears arrest if he visits Britain.

Instead of giving evidence in the Royal Courts of Justice, he will use the latest technology at an estimated personal cost of £30,000.

Mr Polanski has issued libel proceedings against Condé Nast, publishers of Vanity Fair, over a July 2002 article alleging that 35 years ago, just after his wife, the actress Sharon Tate, had been murdered, he seduced a Swedish woman in Elaine’s restaurant in New York. He was at the restaurant on his way from London to his wife’s burial in California.

After issuing his libel writ, he sought a High Court order allowing him to give evidence via a video-conferencing link from France.

In granting the order, Mr Justice Eady said that, although the reason underlying the application was unattractive, this did not justify depriving Mr Polanski of the chance to have his case heard.

That decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal but restored yesterday by the House of Lords in a 3-2 majority ruling.

The director of Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown fled to his home in France in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor and spending 42 days in California’s state penitentiary while tests were carried out.

He has still to be sentenced, and fears that he would receive a substantial prison term if he returned. He cannot be extradited under French law.

David Hooper, a media law partner at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, who is acting for Vanity Fair, said: “The ruling does not affect the substance of the case which is likely to be heard in several months’ time and which is being vigorously defended by Vanity Fair.”

HIS LIFE IN FILM

2005 Oliver Twist

2002 The Pianist

1999 The Ninth Gate

1994 Death and the Maiden

1992 Bitter Moon

1988 Frantic

1986 Pirates

1979 Tess

1976 Le Locataire (The Tenant)

1974 Chinatown

1971 The Tragedy of Macbeth

1968 Rosemary’s Baby

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