Tag: Judith Townend (Page 6 of 7)

‘L-Day’ arrived and saw the release of 1,987 pages and over one million words in the Leveson report. Edward Craven summarised the key recommendations here for Inforrm. It has been extensively covered in the mainstream media, with most attention on Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations for a new regulatory system. Continue reading

The news of the week is that Leveson will report on 29 November 2012. A copy of the report will be available to download from the Inquiry website once it has been officially published. There has been a huge amount of comment in anticipation of his findings: for a small selection see: Steven Barnett in the Times Higher Education; Robert Peston at the BBC (who refreshingly admits “the defining characteristic of my knowledge of the Leveson report is that I don’t know very much“); Richard Ackland in the Sydney Morning Herald; further backlash at the Mail; and a Guardian editorial calling for “a small number of key changes” to the Hunt-Black plan. Professor Stewart Purvis has a 70 word summary here. Continue reading

Lord McAlpine’s settlement with the BBC for £185,000 plus costs, and the threat of legal action against tweeters who published his name following Newsnight’s false allegations has been the top media law story of the week. A transcript of McAlpine’s interview with BBC World at One is available here; his solicitor’s interview with the programme can be listened to here. Continue reading

Leveson, phone hacking and press regulation have been overshadowed this week by the ongoing crisis at the BBC, which has seen the director general George Entwistle resign after 54 full days in post. Prior to his resignation, the BBC issued an “unreserved apology for a Newsnight report which led to Lord McAlpine being wrongly implicated in the alleged sexual abuse of children at north Wales care homes“. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a named contributor to the Newsnight programme, has published a statement from its trustees here. The Independent speculates on the likely candidates for the D-G job here. Continue reading

The Court of Appeal has delivered judgment in the joined cases of Cairns v Modi and KC v MGN Ltd ([2012] EWCA Civ 1382). Both appeals concerned the assessment of damages in libel actions, as Kirsten Sjøvoll reported for Inforrm here. The appeal in Cairns was dismissed; the award was found to be proportionate to the gravity of the allegations made against Cairns. In KC, however, the award of damages was reduced to £50,000. Continue reading

Frankie Boyle was successful in his libel claim against Mirror Group Newspapers, as Inforrm reported here. The jury found in Boyle’s favour on liability: they found that he had been libelled by an article which described him as a “racist comedian” and by a claim that he had been “forced to quit” the BBC show Mock the Week. On the first allegations, he was awarded damages of £50,400 and, on the second, damages of £4,250. He is to donate the award in damages to the charity Reprieve, the BBC reports. Continue reading

We lead with criminal, rather than civil, law developments relating to media and communications. There have been a spate of prosecutions relating to social media use: a teenager from Lancashire was imprisoned for sick and grossly offensive jokes on his Facebook page about the missing 5 year old April Jones and Madeline McCann; in the same week, Azhar Ahmed was sentenced to 240 hours of community service for posting an offensive update to his Facebook page about British soldiers in Afghanistan, following the death of six British soldiers. Continue reading