Media Law, Lecture 2.

In the media law lecture last Tuesday, we learnt about the British justice system, and the rights that the journalists have before a suspect is convicted of a crime.

During the committal proceedings only the name, age, address, occupation, charge, date and place of crown court hearing, bail and legal aid conditions and the names of counsel can be revealed by the press. This is because when the case becomes active it is incredibly important that nobody can cause prejudice amongst the jury.
Any breach of court order has been strictly forbidden, since the contempt of court act- 1981. Journalists though effectively have the right to say what they want about convicted criminals, and of course they duly oblige because they can officially be considered guilty!
However there have of course been cases in the past where suspects have been wrongly convicted, and so didn’t deserve the guilty portrayal from the press.
An example of the British justice system failing which sticks in my mind is that of British teenager Derek Bailey; who was convicted of the murder of a police officer during a robbery. Bailey was consequently hanged, despite the fact it was known that he didn’t shoot at the victim, and it was questionable that he encouraged his accomplice to do so either. Many people believed that he was unfairly convicted and because of the nature of the crime was treated as a guilty party throughout the trail. This was later proved to be the case, when a ‘posthumous pardon’ was secured in 1966, and then a ‘royal pardon’ was also secured 27 years later.
However in British law this doesn’t quash the conviction for murder, and the conviction wasn’t lifted until 1998 when it was set aside by the court of appeal.

However the British justice system should always based on the presumption of innocence, hence the phrase; ‘innocent until proven guilty’. This must be respected by journalists, who can be punished incredibly severely for contempt of court. However of course it is not just journalists who can be punished for contempt of court. A rather humorous case of contempt of court is that of the Islamic woman who was charged and put before a judge because she was found to be listening to her MP3 player underneath her hijab during a high profile murder case.
The full story is available here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2049678.ece