Kehm defends handling of Schumacher privacy

Sabine Kehm (L) with Michael Schumacher over 10 years ago

(GMM) Manager Sabine Kehm has defended her handling of the media since Michael Schumacher's skiing crash seventeen months ago.

Kehm and Schumacher's wife Corinna have often been criticized for guarding privacy so fiercely since the late December 2013 accident.

It means the great German has not been seen publicly, while the nature of his health condition and recovery from brain injuries is largely unknown.

But Kehm told Der Spiegel, a German weekly: "Michael always had strict rules that we worked out together.

"He kept his job strictly separately from the private side, and he never deviated from that," she insisted.

"There was never a 'home story', and no journalist ever had his phone number," added Kehm.

Spiegel said that since Schumacher, now 46, returned home to his Swiss villa last September, photographers almost constantly hide in the nearby woods or attempt to catch a glimpse at the seven time world champion in low-flying helicopters.

The report said Kehm and the family are supported by Felix Damm, a media lawyer.

"For their privacy," he said, "you have to imagine an island floating in a seat of tabloids."