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Fair Trial or Free Press: Legal Responses to Media Reports of Criminal Trials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Bronwyn Naylor
Bronwyn Naylor
Affiliation:
Institute of Criminology, Cambridge.
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Extract

In June 1993 in R v. Taylor the Court of Appeal quashed the murder convictions of two young women on grounds (inter alia) of prejudicial press coverage of the original trial. In October 1993 three police officers charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice following the release of the Birmingham Six had their prosecution stayed. The court accepted the argument that adverse publicity made a fair trial impossible.

Type
Shorter Articles
Information
The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , November 1994 , pp. 492 - 501
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1994

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References

1 R. v. Taylor [1993] The Times, 15 June.

2 R. v. Reade [1993] The Independent, 19 October.

3 See McConville, Mike, Andrew, Sanders and Leng, Roger, The Case for the Prosecution: Police Suspects and the Construction of Criminality (London, 1991).Google Scholar

4 See for example Berger, P. and Luckmann, T., The Social Construction of Reality (London, 1967).Google Scholar

5 The Court of Appeal commented, however, “We can only conclude that [the Detective Superintendent] did not disclose it to the prosecution legal team, because he knew that if he did, in accordance with the Bar's high tradition, they would in turn disclose it to the Defence.” (Transcript, 12–13).

6 Williams, Paul and Dickinson, Julie, “Fear of Crime: Read All About It? The Relationship between Newspaper Crime Reporting and Fear of Crime” (1993) 33 British Journal of Criminology 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See Ericson, Richard, Baranek, Patricia and Chan, Janet, Visualizing Deviance: A Study of Sews Organization (Milton Keynes, 1987).Google Scholar

8 See for example Hall, Stuart, Critcher, Chas, Jefferson, Tony, Clarke, John and Roberts, Brian, Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order (Basingstoke, 1978);CrossRefGoogle ScholarSumner, Colin and Sandberg, Simon, “Press censure of 'dissident minorities' “ in Colin (ed.), Censure. Politics and CriminalJustice (Milton Keynes, 1990).Google Scholar

9 Chibnall, Steve, Law-and-Order News: An Analysis of Crime Reporting in the British Press (London 1977), p. 44.Google Scholar

10 December 93-May 94 averages: Media Guardian 20 June 1994. During this period 4 million people bought the Sun each day, and 2.5 million bought the Daily Minor, the two top-selling national newspapers.

11 Nellis, Mike, “Myra Hindley: The Hated Icon” (1985) 20 The Abolitionist, p. 9.Google Scholar

12 Astor, David, “A witch-hunt that demeans us all”, The Observer, 25 04 1993.Google Scholar

13 See for example Association of British Editors, An Alternative White Paper: Media Freedom and Media Regulation (February 1994).

14 Quoted in the Guardian 12 June 1993, p. 1. Was this an admission that people do not believe what they read in the tabloid press?

15 (1969) 53 Cr.App.Rep. 412, 414.

16 Robertson, Geoffrey and Nicol, Andrew, Media Law (3rd ed.) (London, 1992), p. 263.Google Scholar

17 (1969) 53 Cr.App.Rep. 412,415.

18 Kramer, Geoffrey P. et al. , “Pretrial Publicity, Judicial Remedies, and Jury Bias” (1990) 14 Law and Human Behaviour, p. 409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 See Robertson and Nicol, pp. 323ff; Miller, C.J., Contempt of Court (2nd ed.) (Oxford, 1990),Google Scholar ch. 10.

20 Magistrates Courts Act 1980, s. 8. A defendant has a right to have the restriction lifted.

21 Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (as amended), ss. 39(1) and 49(1).

22 Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976, s. 4; since extended to victims of other sexual offences by the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992.

23 Miller, pp. 315ff.

24 See R v. Evesham Justices, ex pane McDonagh [1988] Q.B. 553. See generally Robertson and Nicol, pp. 339–340.

25 Contempt of Court Act 1981, s. 4(1).

26 Contempt of Court Act 1981, s. 4(2).

27 See for example Re Central Television pic. [1991] 1 W.L.R. 4.

28 Attorney-General v. English [1983] 1 A.C. 116, 141.

29 Contempt of Court Act 1981, s. 2(1). See generally, Miller, Contempt of Court, Robertson and Nicol, Media Law, ch. 6.

30 Attorney-General v. Independent TV News Ltd. [1994] The Times, 12 May.

31 See Miller, ch. 6, Robertson and Nicol, pp. 278–8 on when a case is sub judice or “active.”

32 Contempt of Court Act 1981, s. 5.

33 Transcript, p. 10; 10 July 1992.

34 Quoted in The Times 29 May 1993.

35 See Miller, op. cit, p. 191. The author cites Dyson (1943) 29 Cr.App.Rep. 104 as the “only modern recorded instance” where a conviction was quashed at p. 192.

36 (1991) 92 Cr.App.Rep. 239.

37 R.v. McCann, Cullen and Shanahan (1991) 92 Cr.App.Rep. 239, 245, 250.

38 Transcript, p. 18.

39 R. v. Derby Stipendiary Magistrate, ex pane Brooks (unreported), 17 February 1994.