A defendant had been accused of using stolen human body parts in art exhibits. The Observer newspaper published an article said to have been in contempt of court, prejudicing the trial.
Held: Sedley LJ discussed the possibility of a retrial in the context of an accusation of contempt of court by the media: ‘an appeal on the ground of prejudice would not succeed, no more should the publisher be guilty of contempt. The prospective risk of serious prejudice cannot be any greater than the actual possibility, in the assumed situation, that it has occurred. By parity of reasoning, a case in which an appeal would in the assumed events succeed will ordinarily be a case where contempt is made out.’
Collins J recognised ‘the desirability’ of uniformity of approach to the question of appeals against conviction and applications arising from alleged contempt but continued: ‘It must always be remembered that the law of contempt is concerned with preventing a publication because it creates a substantial risk of serious prejudice whereas the Court of Appeal will be concerned with whether there has been such prejudice as renders the conviction unsafe. The fact that no actual prejudice has resulted from the publication cannot prevent it being a contempt within the meaning of section 2(2), although no doubt the lack of actual prejudice may be relevant in deciding whether there really was a substantial risk of serious prejudice.’
Judges:
Sedley LJ, Collins J
Citations:
[1999] EWHC Admin 730, [1999] EWHC Admin 731, [1999] EMLR 905
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – HM Attorney General v MGN Ltd and Another Admn 29-Jul-2011
The police arrested a man on suspicion of the murder of a young woman. He was later released and exonerated, and a second man arrested and later convicted. Whilst the first was in custody the two defendant newspapers, the Daily Mirror and the Sun . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Media, Contempt of Court
Updated: 02 May 2022; Ref: scu.139995
