A teletext page can be a document for gaming licensing purposes. A bookmaker sought to advertise his services via a teletext page. His services were not licensed in this country, but the advertisements were. It was held that despite the insubstantial nature of a teletext broadcast, the page constituted, sufficiently for the Act, ‘an advertisement or other document . . issued circulated or distributed’ in the UK. The page held recorded information. The page was within the mischief contemplated. Chadwick LJ: The error in his reasoning, as it seems to me, was to regard the transmission of electronic impulses from one electronic database to another as the transmission of ‘information’ as if that were something distinct from the transmission of a ‘document’. The true analysis is that the transmission of electronic impulses is simply that: it is nothing more nor less than the transmission of electronic impulses. It is the combination of those impulses within co-ordinates and groups that may convey information. If the impulses are transmitted to a system which is capable of receiving and storing them in the same, or some derivative, combination – so that they can be analysed or ‘read’ – then it may be said that a document is created in or on the recipient database. It is as apt to describe the process as the transmission of a document as it is to describe it as the transmission of information. Indeed, it is now a matter of common parlance to talk of ‘sending a document’ from one computer to another. But what is really happening is that, by the transmission of electronic impulses in a combination, or ‘language’, which the recipient system can read, the sender is creating a document on the recipient database.
Judges:
Sir Richard Scott, Lord Justice Chadwick, Lord Justice Buxton
Citations:
Times 08-Mar-2000, Gazette 16-Mar-2000, [2000] EWHC Admin 299, [2000] 1 WLR 1296
Links:
Statutes:
Betting and Gaming Duties Act 1981 9(1)(b)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Victor Chandler International v Commissioners of Customs and Excise and Another ChD 17-Aug-1999
A document is a material object. A form presented as a screen via Teletext did not constitute an ‘advertisement or document’ under the Act, and its circulation within the UK without a licence was not an offence. The prohibition was against . .
Cited – Derby and Co Ltd And Others v Weldon And Others (No 9) ChD 25-Jul-1990
The court considered the application of rules relating to the discovery of documents to material held on computer: ‘the database of a computer, so far as it contained information capable of being retrieved and converted into readable form, and . .
Cited – Rollo v HM Advocate 1997
The court discussed the nature of a document as applied to an electronic notebook seized under the 1971 Act: ‘It seems to us that the essential essence of a document is that it is something containing recorded information of some sort. It does not . .
Cited – Regina v Westminster City Council and others ex parte M, P, A and X CA 1997
Destitute asylum-seekers could derive benefit from section 21.
Held: ‘The destitute condition to which asylum-seekers can be reduced as a result of the 1996 Act coupled with the period of time which, despite the Secretary of State’s best . .
Cited – Regina v Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council, ex parte M; Regina v Similar Ex Parte P etc QBD 8-Oct-1996
Destitute asylum seekers who were not entitled to welfare benefits could be in need of care and attention within the meaning of section 21 of the 1948 Act although they were no longer entitled to housing assistance or other social security benefits . .
Cited – Fitzpatrick v Sterling Housing Association CA 23-Jul-1997
A homosexual partner of a deceased tenant was not a member of that tenant’s family so as to entitle him to inherit the Rent Act tenancy on the death of his partner. . .
Cited – Fitzpatrick v Sterling Housing Association Ltd HL 28-Oct-1999
Same Sex Paartner to Inherit as Family Member
The claimant had lived with the original tenant in a stable and long standing homosexual relationship at the deceased’s flat. After the tenant’s death he sought a statutory tenancy as a spouse of the deceased. The Act had been extended to include as . .
Cited – Alliance and Leicester Building Society v Ghahremani and others 1992
The court rejected a submission that Mr Justice Vinelott’s view as to the scope of the word ‘document’ was restricted to questions of discovery under the rules of court. He applied the extended meaning of a document described to the question of . .
Cited by:
Cited – Oxfordshire County Council v Oxford City Council and others HL 24-May-2006
Application had been made to register as a town or village green an area of land which was largely a boggy marsh. The local authority resisted the application wanting to use the land instead for housing. It then rejected advice it received from a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Media, Licensing, Litigation Practice
Updated: 20 May 2022; Ref: scu.90161