When a court considered ordering a restriction on reporting of a case until after it was concluded, it had a three stage test to apply. First, would the reporting create a not insubstantial risk of prejudice. If there was no such risk, an order could not be made. Second, would an order reduce or remove the threat, and could the threat of harm be achieved by some lesser order. Only then could a court come to ask whether the degree of risk which might be run outweighed the competing duty to provide an open system of justice This was a case in which it had been necessary to order a split trial, and in addition to other factors the later trial may have been prejudiced by reporting of the first, and the order was properly made.
Longmore LJ said: ‘It is clear that the duty of the Court of Appeal when exercising this jurisdiction is not merely to review the decision of the trial judge who made the order under challenge, but rather to come to its own independent conclusions on the material placed before it’
Judges:
Longmore LJ
Citations:
Times 12-Jun-2001, Gazette 12-Jul-2001, [2001] EWCA Crim 1075, [2001] 1 WLR 1983
Links:
Statutes:
Contempt of Court Act 1981 4(2), Criminal Justice Act 1988 159, European Convention on Human Rights 6 10
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – A and Others, Regina v; Regina v The Crown Court at the Central Criminal Court ex parte A Times Newspapers Ltd etc CACD 13-Jan-2006
The defendant was to be charged with offences associated with terrorism. He had sought stay of the trial as an abuse of process saying that he had been tortured by English US and Pakistani authorities. The judge made an order as to what parts of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contempt of Court, Media, Human Rights, Criminal Practice
Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.88666