Ronald Kray had been convicted of murder on 4th March 1969, and on 15th April 1969 he and a number of others were facing a second indictment charging them with murder and other offences. His counsel sought to challenge prospective jurors for cause on the ground that the previous trial had been extensively reported, and that prejudice to Kray resulting therefrom would be likely to influence the minds of the jurors in the second trial.
Held: Lawton J confirmed the right to report the first trial and said: ‘What is more, the mere fact that a newspaper has reported a trial and a verdict which was adverse to the person subsequently accused ought not in the ordinary way to produce a case of probable bias against jurors empanelled in a later case.’ and ‘The situation, however, is, in my judgment, entirely different when newspapers, knowing that there is going to be later trial, dig up from the past of the convicted who have to meet further charges discreditable allegations which may be either fact or fiction, and those allegations are then publicised over a wide area. This does, in my judgment, lead to a prima facie presumption that anybody who may have read that kind of information might find it difficult to reach a verdict in a fair-minded way. It is, however, a matter of human experience, and certainly a matter of the experience of those who practise in the criminal courts, first, that the public’s recollection is short, and, secondly, that the drama, if I may use that term, of a trial almost always has the effect of excluding from recollection that which went before. A person summoned for this case would not, in my judgment, disqualify himself merely because he had read any of the newspapers containing allegations of the kind I have referred to; but the position would be different if, as a result of reading what he had, his mind had become so clogged with prejudice that he was unable to try the case impartially.’
Judges:
Lawton J
Citations:
[1969] 53 Cr App R 412
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Central Criminal Court ex parte The Telegraph Plc CACD 1993
The court considered the effect of a jury trial in balancing pre-trial prejudicial publicity. Lord Taylor CJ said: ‘In determining whether publication of matter would cause a substantial risk of prejudice to a future trial, a court should credit the . .
Cited – Regina v Stone CACD 14-Feb-2001
The defendant appealed against his conviction in 1998 of murder based on a confession said to have been made to a fellow prisoner on remand. A witness supporting that confession said after the trial that he had lied under police pressure. The appeal . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice, Media
Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.441579