Why has the News of the World suddenly removed from its website pictures and video of Formula 1 boss Max Mosley consorting with prostitutes? Until yesterday this link took readers to a set of photographs - some of them published in the paper last Sunday - which purported to show Mosley "romping with five hookers at a depraved Nazi-style orgy in a torture dungeon."
The story is still there, but the video and pictures have been taken down. Why? According to the Daily Telegraph's motor sport correspondent, Kevin Garside, there is "reasonable doubt" about the Nazi dungeon theme. He writes: "Stripped of the fascist associations, the piece reduces to a man indulging in role play with five vice girls. Still not great, I grant you, but nowhere near as pernicious."
As Garside concedes, he has been heavily criticised for his original defence of Mosley. He certainly took some stick from commenters when I posted his remarks on Monday. But he is not alone in arguing that "there was something awfully convenient about the Nazi link".
Gardside asks: "Could it [the Nazi scenario] have been rigged for the benefit of a Sunday newspaper expose?"
That thought struck me too. Was Mosley set up? Was the paper set up? The News of the World's swift decision to remove the pictures after being contacted by Mosley's lawyers does suggest that it is far from convinced about the veracity of its allegations.
Not that the Daily Express appears overly worried. It carries a spread today on Mosley that assumes the truth of the Nazi angle.
