Ryan Giggs has lost his claim for damages against News Group Newspapers (“NGN”). In a judgment published on 2 March 2012 ([2012] EWHC 431 (QB)) Mr Justice Tugendhat refused to reinstate the footballer’s claim for damages against NGN on the grounds that Giggs had been party to two serious breaches, one of the rules of court, the other of an Order of Mr Justice Eady of 20 April 2011. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Month: March 2012 (Page 4 of 7)
Thanks to the Leveson inquiry, the British media system and news-gathering practices have been the subject of extensive public discussion and debate. Yet, little attention has been given to how favourably our system – even with all its flaws – compares to those in other countries. Through a project supported by the Great Britain China Centre (“GBCC”), Chinese academics and judges have been looking to our jurisdiction for guidance on how to protect Chinese media and journalists. Continue reading
The BBC’s Top Gear is no stranger to controversy. Renowned for its irreverent brand of humour, comments on the show have landed the BBC in hot water on more than one occasion. But while they often occupy the headlines, such incidents have rarely ended up before the courts. The recent Tesla v BBC case ([2012] EWHC 310 (QB)) is a notable exception. Continue reading
Once a rough trade in self-serving but criminogenic information was elevated to the more noble, although self-appointed, task of ‘holding people to account’ in ‘the news of the screws’ and the media more generally, it was inevitable that political careers, and lives generally, would be destroyed by a barely regulated industry of censure and slur. In turn, that meant that powerful and very public people would become more professional in protecting their power, image, position and livelihoods. It led to an outbreak of libel suits just as night follows day. Continue reading
The Leveson Inquiry urgently needs to break open the Motorman files – not least because they might reveal how phone hacking really worked
Few news outlets reported in detail the evidence of Alec Owens, an ex-policeman and former Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) investigator who gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry about Operation Motorman and its aftermath. They should have. Not simply for the light it shed on the practices and ethics of newsgathering, but because his evidence – and the Motorman Files he discussed – might provide the key to how phone hacking worked. Continue reading
On 2 March 2012, in Tamiz v Google Inc, Google successfully challenged the English court’s jurisdiction to hear a libel claim against it founded on comments posted to a blog hosted on its Blogger platform. Mr Justice Eady held that Google was not a publisher of the comments, even after notification of the complainant’s objections. Continue reading
The industry in moral espionage has moved well beyond elite transgressions into the tragic moments of ordinary members of the public. It has brought private detectives firmly into the mainstream of muck, and out of the shadows. It has merged with, and to some extent created, politicians’ need for ‘spin’, for personal image management and careful policy dissemination. It has linked in with other policing agencies, so moving us nearer the complete ‘surveillance society’. Continue reading
Many lawyers had hoped that the days of ill-thought-out legal reform and bad legislation – a favourite pastime of the last Government – were long since gone. But the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill suggests otherwise, particularly when it comes to libel actions, access to justice and conditional fee agreements. Continue reading
News: Rebekah and Charlie Brooks reported to be among six new phone hacking arrests – Laura Sandwell
It is reported that former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks and her husband, the racehorse trainer, Charlie Brooks, are among six new Operation Weeting arrests today. The six were arrested this morning as part of the inquiry into the phone hacking at News of the World and its aftermath. The arrests took place in a series of co-ordinated raids between 0500 and 0700am. Metropolitan Police officers arrested five men and one woman on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977, and are searching premises connected with these arrests. Continue reading
The discovery of Glenn Mulcaire’s hoard of notebooks is among the more memorable details of the phone hacking scandal. The information they contained revealed the extent of News Group Newspaper’s illegal activities, and the company’s interest in figures from across public life. But the value of the scrutiny of Mulcaire and NGN’s relationship which the affair has prompted goes beyond its effect on the media to the wider exposure of another unregulated industry which frequently profits from personal information, that of private investigators. Continue reading
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