Extra 2 - Cases

Question 1

A woman v Derby Telegraph

Answer 1

Ethical code - intrusion into grief or shock.

Ipso ruled that the Derby Telegraph breached three clauses of the Editors’ Code of Practice because a member of its staff took a photo of two 11-year-old girls - one of them injured - following a traffic incident outside a school, which was published online. The injured girl’s face was pixelated but the newspaper did not know that the two girls were sisters and so publishing the image was likely to identify both. The girl’s mother complained that the photo depicted a distressing incident for her daughters. After hearing the complaint, the newspaper immediately removed the image from its website and Ipso said the injured girl had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Ipso ruled that photographing her breached clause 2 of the Code, publishing the photo which risked notifying friends and relatives of the accident breached clause 4 and clause 6 because it was done without parental consent.

Question 2

Gaddis v Hamilton Advertiser

Answer 2

Ethical code - children

The Press Complaints Commission ruled that a Scottish newspaper breached clause 6 of the Editors’ Code because of the way it published on its website mobile phone footage shot by a 16-year-old girl showing disruptive behaviour by classmates.

Question 3

Ofcom Bulletin no. 116

Answer 3

Ofcom adjudication - privacy

Ofcom rejected complaints from parents where children had been filmed during an undercover investigation into nursery standards. The children’s faces were blurred. Reports from senior member of staff that conditions were dirty and care of toddlers and babies was impacted. BBC sent undercover journalist to get a job, prima facie evidence obtained before filming was permitted. Infringement of children’s privacy warranted by public interest. Broadcast - only people who knew the children very well could identify and footage would not reveal private/sensitive info. Therefore broadcast did not infringe privacy.

Question 4

Bryan v Mail Online

Answer 4

Ethical code - privacy

In 2017 a woman complained that a Mail Online article about controversy in which she was involved had featured, without her consent, a photo of her in a Hallowe’en costume. Ipso said clause 2 of the Editors’ Code was not breached because the photo was not private information. It noted that before the complained-of article appeared the woman had placed the photo in the public domain by posting it on her Twitter account, which had some 36,000 followers, so she did not have a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ in respect of the photo.

Question 5

Sir Cliff Richard OBE v BBC and the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire police

Answer 5

In 2018 a High Court judge awarded Cliff Richard damages after he won an action against the BBC for misuse of private information and breach of data protection law. He sued because it reported that officers from the South Yorkshire police force were searching his penthouse flat in Berkshire, and the BBC’s reporting revealed that the search was taking place because police had received an allegation that he had committed a sexual assault in the 1980s. Richard was not arrested and it was announced that no charges would be brought against him. The police force admitted liability as they had supplied information to the BBC.

Question 6

Scott v Scott

Answer 6

This case affirmed the common law rule that normally courts must administer justice in public.

Question 7

Saville Inquiry

Answer 7

Disclosure of sources

Lord Saville, chairman of inquiry into 1972 Bloody Sunday Killings, threatened three journalists (two from Channel 4 and one from the Daily Telegraph) with contempt actions. Journalists were refusing to name sources of stories about killings. Alex Thomson and Lena Ferguson (Channel 4) and Toby Harkden (Daily Telegraph). Harkden ‘placed in contempt’ after refusing to reveal the identity of a soldier, notes and tapes were destroyed. Saville initiated contempt proceedings at High Court but proceedings were dropped. Did not bring contempt proceedings against the other two journalists.

Question 8

Leonard Arthur case (Attorney General v English)

Answer 8

Contempt of court

Two newspapers were prosecuted in 1981 for contempt arising from comments published during the trial of Dr Leonard Arthur, a paediatrician accused of murdering a newborn baby with Down’s syndrome. It was alleged that the doctor, complying with the parents’ wishes, let the infant starve. Dr Arthur was acquitted of murder. The Sunday Express admitted that a contempt was committed in a comment article by the editor, which said the baby was drugged instead of being fed and died ‘unloved and unwanted’.

But the Daily Mail denied contempt, arguing that its article was protected by section 5. The House of Lords ruled on appeal that while the article, which considered whether severely disabled babies should be allowed or encouraged to survive, did create a substantial risk of serious prejudice to Dr Arthur’s trial, it was written in good faith and was a discussion of public affairs because it was written in support of a ‘pro-life’ candidate at a by-election. Lord Diplock said the article made no express mention of Dr Arthur’s case and the risk of prejudice would be properly described as merely incidental.

Question 9

Newstead v London Express Newspapers

Answer 9

Defamation

The Daily Express reported that ‘Harold Newstead, a 30-year-old Camberwell man’, was jailed for nine months for bigamy. Another Harold Newstead, who worked in Camberwell, sued, claiming the report was understood to refer to him.

Question 10

Goodwin v United Kingdom

Answer 10

Disclosure of sources

Engineering company Tetra Ltd obtained injunctions against The Engineering magazine and trainee reporter Bill Goodwin. The company, which was in financial difficulties, had prepared a business plan to help negotiate a substantial bank loan. A copy of the draft plan ‘disappeared’ from its offices and the next day a source telephoned Mr Goodwin and gave him information about the company, including the amount of the projected loan and Tetra’s forecast results. Tetra obtained a without notice injunction banning publication of information derived from the draft plan, and later obtained an order that Mr Goodwin and The Engineer should hand over notes which would disclose the source. Mr Goodwin refused, and was fined £5,000. The European Court of Human Rights later ruled that the court order and the fine violated his right to freedom of expression under Article 10. Mr Goodwin was supported by the NUJ.

Question 11

Sun Printers v Westminster Press Ltd

Answer 11

Confidentiality

A copy of a Sun Printers report was given to the Watford Observer. A High Court injunction was obtained to stop the publication as it was deemed to be a breach of confidence. The paper appealed, the Court of Appeal lifted the injunction, allowing the Watford Observer to publish extracts. The report had already been widely circulated by the Sun Printers that it was no longer confidential. It was in the public domain and in the public interest.

Question 12

Lion Laboratories v Evans

Answer 12

Confidentiality

The Court of Appeal ruled that it was in the public interest to publish information from an internal memo, leaked from a company making breathalyser equipment, which case doubt on the accuracy of the device at a time when police were using it to clamp down on drink-driving.

Question 13

Beckhams v News of the World

Answer 13

Confidentiality

David and Victoria Beckham failed to get an injunction against the News of the World concerning information about the state of their marriage. The paper argued that the Beckhams had portrayed a false image about their private life, and so it was in the public interest for it to publish information from their former nanny that she had seen them having blazing rows.

Question 14

Peck v United Kingdom

Answer 14

Privacy law

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that a British man’s privacy was unjustifiably infringed because footage which the media broadcast of his suicide attempt in the centre of Brentwood in 1994 identified him. The council released the footage to show that its installation of CCTV cameras helped save his life because police, alerted by the camera operators, took a knife from him and arrested him. But the man, who was mentally ill at the time, was recognisable in images broadcast, despite the council’s request that he should not be.

Question 15

Von Hannover v Germany

Answer 15

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Princess Caroline of Monaco’s privacy was unjustifiably breached by the publication of photographs of scenes from her daily life, shopping or on holiday with her family, in public places. Important considerations in the decision were that she was not an elected politician (she had not chosen to have a high public profile), and had suffered years of being stalked and photographed by paparazzi, which had interfered with her human right to enjoy social interaction with people.

Question 16

Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers

Answer 16

Privacy law - proportionality principle

The Daily Mirror revealed that the supermodel Naomi Campbell was attending Narcotics Anonymous therapy sessions for drug addiction. She conceded that it was in the public interest for the newspaper to expose that she had been taking drugs, because she had previously denied drug-taking and so had misled the public by promoting a false image of herself. But she sued the newspaper on the basis that its coverage had infringed her Article 8 privacy rights by revealing detail of where she had the therapy. It had published photos of her emerging onto a public street from the therapy venue. The House of Lords ruled there were five distinct ‘elements’ of private information: the fact of her drug addiction; the fact that she was receiving therapy for it; the fact that she was having therapy at Narcotics Anonymous; details of the NA therapy and her reaction to it; and surreptitiously obtained photographs of her emerging from an NA session. It ruled that as the model had previously publicly denied using drugs, the first and second facts could be published in the public interest, but that the rest should not have been published, because of the intrusiveness of the disclosure and the likelihood it would disrupt her treatment.

Question 17

Weller case

Answer 17

Privacy law

Paul Weller and his wife won damages for their children whose faces were ‘plastered’ over the MailOnline website. Weller sued the newspaper’s publisher, Associated Newspapers, on behalf of his daughter Dylan who was 16 when seven unpixelated pictures appeared, and twin sons John Paul and Bowie, who were 10 months old. A paparazzo had followed Weller and the children on a shopping trip, taking photos despite being asked to stop. Associated Newspapers said the pictures were innocuous and inoffensive images taken in public places and that the Wellers had previously chosen to open up their private family life to public gaze to a significant degree.

Mr Justice Dingemans said that the Weller children had a reasonable expectation of privacy as they were on a family shopping trip and identified by surname.

Question 18

PJS v News Group Newspapers

Answer 18

Privacy Law

The Supreme Court said both the High Court and Court of Appeal were wrong to decide to lift an interim injunction which stopped The Sun on Sunday publishing information about a married man in the entertainment industry, referred to as PJS, who had been involved in extra-marital sexual activity. ‘Publication of the story would infringe privacy rights of PJS, his partner and their children,’ said Lord Mance.

‘There is no public interest in publishing kiss-and-tell stories or criticisms of private sexual conduct, simply because the persons involved are well-known.’

Question 19

Mosley v News Group Newspapers

Answer 19

Privacy law

Former president of the organisation which runs Formula 1 Grand Prix racing Max Mosley won £60,000 in damages from the News of the World for breach of privacy and confidence over stories, photos and video footage it published about his participation in sadomasochistic activities with prostitutes. One of the prostitutes had breaches the confidence of her arrangement with Mosley by telling the newspaper about and filming the orgy, and the newspaper was ruled to be liable for damages.

Question 20

Reading Post case

Answer 20

Copyright

The Reading Post succeeded with the public interest defence in the small claims court after being sued by the owner of copyright in several photos which it had copied from a website. Police had directed the Post to the site, which showed the apparent exploits of ‘urban explorers’ inside abandoned buildings. The Post said it published the pictures to highlight police concerns that these activities involved criminal damage, including graffiti, and to help identify those involved. The judge said he felt the pictures were posted on the website to encourage the activities, which he said could cause an accident, and the public to suffer, and were a serious social problem.

Question 21

Suzanne Breen case

Answer 21

Disclosure of sources

In 2009 a judge accepted that the Article 2 rights of Suzanne Breen, the then Northern Editor of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper, meant that she should not be compelled to give police notes and records of a phone call she received from a spokesperson for the Real IRA terrorist group claiming responsibility for two murders. The judge ruled that her life would be at ‘real and immediate’ risk from the Real IRA were she to be forced to produce the information.

Question 22

Tisdall case

Answer 22

Disclosure of sources

The Guardian was ordered to return to the Government a leaked photocopy of a Ministry of Defence document revealing the strategy for handling the controversial arrival of US Cruise nuclear missiles, due to be cased in the UK. The Guardian did not know the informant’s identity, but, realising that it might be revealed by examination of the document, argued that section 10 meant it did not have to hand it over. The House of Lords ruled that the interests of national security required disclosure of the informant’s identity, because publishing this document posed no threat to national security but the person who leaked it might leak another. The Guardian handed over the document after being threatened with heavy punishment for contempt of court for any further refusal to surrender it. It had markings showing that it had been created by a copier in the Foreign Office, and consequently the informant, Foreign Office clerk Sarah Tisdall, was convicted under the Official Secrets Act of leaking it, and jailed for six months. Had The Guardian destroyed the document after using it to prepare the article but before being ordered to hand it over, Ms Tisdall’s identity would probably have remained secret.