Page 215 - Law and the Media

Law and the Media
Attorney, concluded that the defendants had not been prejudiced in any significant way, and
proceedings for contempt against the newspapers would be unlikely to succeed. The Taylor
sisters sought judicial review of the decision. The court hearing the application for judicial
review said the inaccurate reporting of the trial had caused it great concern:

. . . some of the coverage crossed the acceptable limits of fair and accurate
reporting by a substantial margin. In some instances . . . neither of those adjectives
were in any way applicable.
(R v Solicitor-General ex parte Taylor and Another (1995))

However, it held that the institution of proceedings for contempt under the strict liability rule
was a matter under the CCA for the Attorney General alone. The court held that if the Attorney
General decided not to bring proceedings for contempt, he could not be compelled to do so. As
a result there was no effective remedy for the inaccurate reporting.

10.2.7 Defences

The CCA provides three defences to strict liability contempt:

Innocent publication
Fair and accurate contemporary reports
Discussion of public affairs.

Innocent publication
Section 3 of the CCA provides that a publisher is not guilty of contempt under the strict liability
rule:

. . . if at the time of publication (having taken all reasonable care) he does not know
and has no reason to suspect that proceedings are active.

A similar defence is available to distributors who take all reasonable care and have no reason to
believe nor any reason to suspect that the publication they distributed contained material in
contempt of court.

The burden of proof is on the publisher or the distributor. The defence may be of limited
application. It is unlikely to assist a media company when publication occurs in the days
following an arrest or the issue of a warrant. A member of the media always has the opportunity
to telephone the police, the court or the lawyers of the accused to determine whether
proceedings are active. A court is likely to find that if he has not done so, he has not taken
‘reasonable care’ and will be unable to rely on the defence.

However, the defence may be of assistance to a media company in circumstances where the
person was arrested or the warrant was issued just as the presses were rolling or the
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