Media Editors and Journalists Beware!

14/05/2015


Media editors and journalists will be concerned by a High Court ruling which for the first time established that they can be held personally, criminally, responsible if they have a hand in publishing material in breach of reporting restrictions.

In the context of a criminal trial, a regional newspaper had named a school in breach of a reporting restriction imposed under Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The company which owned the newspaper admitted the breach before magistrates and was fined £2,160 and hit with a £5,000 costs bill.

The newspaper’s editor also pleaded guilty, and was fined £1,600, but only after the magistrates ruled that, as a matter of law, he had no defence to the charge. He challenged the magistrates’ interpretation of the law, arguing that he did not bear personal criminal responsibility for the offending publication.

In dismissing his appeal, the Court noted that, under the Act, ‘any person who publishes’ information in breach of a reporting restriction commits a criminal offence. On a common sense interpretation of those words, they clearly encompassed not only commercial publishers, but also journalists, their editors, and anyone else involved in bringing about the publication of the forbidden material.

The Court observed that, under a new regime introduced in April 2015, reporting restrictions under the Act will apply not only to mainstream print and broadcast media but also to online publications, including social media.

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