Page 211 - Law and the Media

Law and the Media
trial. While there may be an enormous risk that a feature might prejudice a jury trial, the same
story may be assumed to have no effect at all on proceedings heard by a judge alone.

Court hearings fall into four main categories: by jury, by judge alone, by district judge, or by
lay magistrates.

Jury trials
The greatest care needs to be taken in jury trials. Jurors are selected from the public at large.
Although in some cases jurors are considered to be capable of disregarding what is said in
newspapers or on television, and a strong direction from the judge to disregard any comment
by the media may reduce the risk of serious prejudice, the court is diligent in protecting them
from the influence of prejudicial publicity.

Judge alone or district judge (formerly stipendiary magistrate)
Judges and district judges are fully trained lawyers and can be expected to use their legal
training to disregard almost any sort of material not adduced in evidence or argument in their
court. However, it is still possible for proceedings to be prejudiced, so those in the media
should still exercise care about features that may be grossly prejudicial.

Lay magistrates
Lay magistrates have comparatively very little legal training and, although the risk may be
less than in the case of jurors, extreme caution must still be exercised before publishing
material concerning hearings before them.

Date of hearing
The proximity in time between publication and hearing is a crucial factor that can affect both
the degree of risk and the seriousness of the prejudice.

This issue is particularly relevant to jury trials. Jurors exposed to prejudicial material are far
more likely to have it at the front of their minds after one month than after a year. The Court
of Appeal dealt with precisely this point in A-G v News Group Newspapers (1986). The well-
known cricketer Ian Botham sued the Mail on Sunday for libel over allegations of drug
taking. Eleven months before the trial was due to take place, the News of the World
announced its intention to publish similar allegations about Botham. The Attorney General
applied for an injunction to prevent publication on the grounds that the News of the World
article would be in contempt of the existing libel action, which was already active. The Court
of Appeal held that it was not satisfied the publication of the article by the News of the World
so far in advance of the trial date would create a substantial risk of serious prejudice, and
refused to grant an injunction.

In 1996 the Daily Mail published an article about a woman who had been charged with theft.
Next to photographs of the woman taken in secret was the headline ‘The home help who was
busily helping herself’. The judge found that there was a clear case of ‘trial by newspaper’,
which amounted to contempt. However, a crucial factor was that the publication was made
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