Author Topic: The Defence Will State Their Case  (Read 592323 times)

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2025 on: October 11, 2018, 03:31:41 PM »
£780 is for the whole days proceedings. I thought I would suggest it purely because you are so obsessed with finding out what went on the courtroom. I read on another site that they are not hard to obtain for members of the public, considering it was a public trial. I have obtained numerous summing up in the past but it was for work purposes, they cost around £200+.

It's not obsessed as to what took place at the trial, more of a case of knowing what the evidence there was that was produced, and what was said by whom...  It would give me a more accurate picture in which I have support to my argument either for or against...

And every witness that were called... did anyone have anonymity, they may not have been reported about in the paper, but I would imagine, I could be wrong, that they should be recorded somewhere....

Another bug bare I have, was that we went straight to sentencing.... I thought sentencing reports were gathered first and a date would be set for sentencing?? The fact that no medical assessment appears to have been done and used in mitigation, has me wondering if there could have been anything in Dr Vincent Tabak's history that may have reflected a reason for him to behave as they are telling us, completely out of character...

Because I do not understand law, I have been left with many questions.... But first and foremost of any trial, is the presumption of Innocence... I believe I know that much... And it is for the Prosecution to prove their case.. Not for the Defence to prove the Prosecutions case for them....

I keep saying,... No-one will care to look at this case.... It's done and dusted as far as anyone... virtually everyone else is concerned...

And with the many miscarriages of justice that have taken place, I think Dr Vincent Tabak will not even reach the bottom of the pile if there isn't anyone out there to fight for his case, I am unable to do this..

And so I will find out maybe when he is released, if he dares to speak out even then... As there are other charges I believe left on file in regards the 2015 conviction, and as anyone knows thats leverage for keep quite...(imo)

So it may be when everyone is gone, dead and buried and they will say... wow that case made no sense... They cut how many corners.... And the fact that I may be correct will be of little importance to the people who are here now...

Being found not guilty after you have died is not really any use.... The family might be lucky to get an apology... If they care to contend it at that point....






jixy

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2026 on: October 11, 2018, 04:04:13 PM »
I have started to write a reply and already deleted so many attempts.... all I am left with is this

Please tell me you cant be serious?

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2027 on: October 11, 2018, 04:07:17 PM »
I have started to write a reply and already deleted so many attempts.... all I am left with is this

Please tell me you cant be serious?


How do you mean?  Can't be serious about what exactly??

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2028 on: October 12, 2018, 11:55:11 AM »
Part 1 of post..

Christopher Jefferies @ 5x15 - Gives His Perspective

5x15 Stories
Published on Jun 11, 2015
Educated at University College London and Oxford University. Head of Sixth Form Special Studies and Deputy Head of English at Clifton College, and also Manager of the Redgrave Theatre in Bristol. Christopher spends as much time as possible in France. Since appearing at the Leveson Inquiry he has become a Patron of the Hacked Off campaign for press reform.

Learn more about 5x15 events - www.5x15.com


Quote
Thank you... Well I'm going to talk a little bit about the campaign of vicious vilification that was waged against me in the media. Erm.. when I was in er custody accused of the murder of Jo Yeates, erm but.. First of all just one or two things about the way in which Jo herself was presented in the media after all she was the, tragic victim at the centre of this drama.

She was young, she was quite attractive, she was vulnerable, er, she was home loving, she was at the start of what promised to be a very successful career as landscape er er architect. Erm and she was just about to spend her first christmas with her boyfriend, she was presented in effect as everybodys favourite daughter. And they were everybodys ideal couple. And then suddenly all this was destroyed and her body was found, remember callously dumped at the side of the road on Christmas Day of all days....
And so evidentally ,we are looking for a depraved monster who's responsible for all this, I'm the person who's been arrested, and immediately a large part of the press were determined to believe that the person who had been arrested was the genuine murderer and so to portray me in as dark and as lurid a light as possible.

And the first thing that happened was that somebody remembered that 30 odd years previously there'd been an unsolved murder of another young woman, erm less than a quarter of a mile away from where Jo had been living.
Erm and of course I had also been living in the area at that times, so there was quite a bit of excitement  that perhaps not just a murderer had been discovered, but somebody who was a serial murderer and erm in fact much later I was rung up by somebody I didn't know to say that while I'd been in custody erm, he'd overheard a conversation between a couple of reporters erm who were speculating um that almost certainly a serial murderer had been uncovered.

Erm and, then it seemed quite possible in the end this did indeed turn out to be absolutely true that there was a sexual motive for the a murder. Now erm I suppose that if your a reporter who's interested first and foremost in the sensational story thats going to sell copies you may talk lets say to a hundred people if 99 of them say one thing but the 100th, perhaps becawse you've offered them some money or some other inducements as what you want to hear,then thats what you are going to go with.

And.. reports where published that 2 anonymous women had come forward who very conveniently no longer lived in Bristol.. Erm it was said, erm who'd apparently suffered form of sexual harrassment and were prepared to insist that I was guilty of that harrassment. But in my case the tabloids weren't just content with simple sexual harrassment just to be er sexual predator  that perhaps not quite spicy enough, so  somebody managed er to unearth the most tenuous connection imaginable between me and somebody who had been in prison several years earlier, for an offence with an underaged boy. Erm... Of course the papers stressed that there was no evidence that I'd been involved in that offence but er, simply by saying there was no evidence they raised the possibility that perhaps I did actually have paedophile tendencies.

So we now have just not a sexual predator er, we've got a bi-sexual predator perhaps with paedophile tendencies as well and all sorts of fantastic rumours were latched onto erm that I would hold pupils hands while reading poetry, again erm obviously with sinister sexual motives. And then to complete the em character assassination it was alledged that I was fascinated by death, in fact obsessed with death. Well what were the grounds for that? Simply that I happened to have shown on occasion a documentary about the liberation of Auschwitz which just happens to be the er one of the finest films to come out of the second world war and is arguably oh, one of the greatest documentaries ever made.

So... this is the person your listening too at the moment this dark macabre sinister villain.. and er there were all sorts of other things, for example, I was almost certainly prone too violent and uncontrollable outbursts of temper.
Now it's also interesting to compare the epithets that were used to describe me on the one hand and Jo on the other.

Jo was always presented as the landscape architect, erm as if to draw attention to her respectable credentials and to underline the fact that her life had been cut tragically short, er where as the Caricature of me was of a peeping tom, becawse I apparently spied on tenants and a loner simply becawse I happened to live on my own.

Now to be fair, the papers didn't entirely ignore the fact that quite a lot of people actually said some rather nice things about me, but these tended to be played down and they certainly weren't given very much prominence in the articles.And.. I'm just going to quote briefly a couple of paragraphs from an article that er.. the professor of journalism at Kingston University wrote about the the coverage my arrest. It appeared about 8 months after I'd been arrested. He said...

This hostile evidence was founded almost entirely on un-named witness's with some of the most contentious quotations, reproduced in several papers. A careful reader who would only rely on quotes of people identified by name would probably seen a very different picture. A former tenant, a friend, a former headmaster , a neighbour, described in various papers though usually towards the end of articles, a man that was a dedictaed teacher, a responsible landlord, an active member of his community. Several expressed amazement at his arrest, or downright disbelief at the idea of him killing anyone.

Put these together with some readily available facts and it would be possible to flip the picture entirely, this man had taught for 34 years, without a blemish on his record, he was involved in neighbour hood watch, the liberal democratic party, and a number of conservation campaigns, he had a large circle of friends, owned a handful of properties, and was studying for a degree in French. As one neighbour put it, he was a pillar of society, but editors didn't give much prominence to that interpretation.


Instead the papers were so engrossed in their witch hunt that they were prepared even to ignore the warnings of the then Attorney General, you may remember that er a couple of them , the Sun and The Daily Mirror were found guilty of contempt and fined. Now what I have been describing are just a few of the more serious allegations, which erm, resulted in my taking libel action, but on every conceivable level the reporting was extraordinarily lazy, and casually inaccurate.

Erm, and I want to suggest that it um, it reveals whats happened to a great deal of mainstream journalism, in thats its er, much closer to fiction,than to fact, it's certainly got nothing to do with truth seeking, and far more to do with story telling. It's a kind of infotainment, in which stories, which pretend to be the news, er, sensationalize as a form of commercial exploitation... And the , er ,er characters in these stories, they are treated simply as pawns, erm or targets, they are not individuals with feelings.

Now I am sure some of you will have heard of Richard Peppiatt used to be a tabloid reporter now has a second career as an expose of that industry and some of you may have seen his wonderfully er satirical and irreverent film, 'One rouge Reporter'.. Well commenting again on the er, reporting of my arrest, but also that of Rebecca Leighton, who you may remember was arrested in 2011 because she was suspected of contaminating saline solution at Steppin Hill Hospital in Greater Manchester, erm he wrote.

Ask them what it is like to be the targets of a media who's commitment is not the truth but entertainment, they've witnessed from the inside the staggering speed with which the manufactured image over takes the real, the crude reduction of their lives into grotesque caricatures, the point of reference used by journalists writing about them was not the real, instead it was the calculating killers, creepy oddballs of the movie screens that was simply superimposed on the names and images of a retired school master and a young nurse to create blockbuster story lines. Just as their readers are treated not as citizens to be respected, but consumers to be manipulated and the moral and ethical standards one applies to real world behaviour can be suspended when adopting the role of the story teller, who's main imperative is to entertain.

Fact is it's a very good example of the well known quotation of attributed to Greg Musique the news editor under both Rebekka Brookes and Andy Colson at the News of The World. "That is what we do" he said. "We go out and destroy other peoples lives. Now I mentioned um briefly Brian Cathcarts article in the Financial Times, er it appeared  8 months after I'd been arrested and during the proceeding months I'd been protected from quite a lot of the details , that had appeared in the papers, by, in the papers by friends that I was staying with. But when I read that article it was extraordinarily powerful, because it, distilled very very, erm, precisely , erm, and um in a remarkably vivid way, just how monsterous what had appeared in the papers was and thee impact  was as great as it was because here was an image erm, which was intending to reflect me back at myself, but it was an image so hideously twisted and distorted, rather like the image of Dorian Grey, that the impact almost physical force, it was like er, a physical assault in fact it was probably worse than that because of the invasion of privacy, that was involved and the contempt and venom was more like a rape, it was being like.... er it was like being the the impersonal victim of a journalistic populist lust to humiliate and demonise anybody who didn't conform to a erm.. conventional sterotype.

And I am going to erm.. end by er giving you just one more quotation, this time it's er.. by Kevin Marsh the former editor of the Today program.

To put it bluntly he says, the business model of the tabloid press has become so dependent on trashing the reputations of ordinary people as well as celebrities, politicians and people in public life, now that it's nothing more than a machine to convert , harrassment, intrusion, misery, sneering and mockery into cash.
Papers sell on the depth of their inhumanity,columnists are judged by the frequency and inventiveness of the offence they cause.


Thank you very much


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swK-y-5B8XY

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2029 on: October 12, 2018, 01:53:17 PM »
Part 2...

I came across that clip on Youtube by accident, and it hasn't had many views.... But that is not the point... I still do not understand why a man who claims he is a private person is dragging his behind across any venue in the land that will care to listen to what he has to say... And the venue which is described in the Youtube video is The Redgrave Theatre in Bristol, around the corner from Canygne Road...

Now I do not know whether I should put any importance upon this venue, but I was surprised to realise that CJ was/is the manager of The Redgrave Theatre in Bristol... (was he a key holder)?? The reason for me that The Theatre is mentioned is important is because i had before pointed out that there' was a Police Officer outside canygne Road at the time of this event that had a remarkable resemblance to Tim Roth( the actor)... Now i am wondering if it in fact was Tim Roth...

The talk that CJ is giving has me in two minds... Do I view it as him attempting to let the real killer know he has information and is part of some collaboration of keeping this in the public eye.. Or look at it as a man who's own self interests he keeps promoting??

Who is the audience... Are they just made up of locals?? Whom is he telling his tale of tabloid journalism too??

He may have complained that he was described as weird and odd, but his appearance at this venue, is rather weird and odd... i mean in the sense of the content of what he states..

Now this video could have been edited or it could be the complete speech he made. But some of the language he uses I find most disturbing, to compare what happened in the media as a kind of RAPE, is wholly inappropriate, It under values victims of such atrocities..

He skims on what the tabloids in themselves state and how this impacted upon his life and jumps to a glowing report from another journalist whom talks of his accomplishments...

Is he really comparing himself to Joanna Yeates and how the media dealt with her story?? Is he really saying that they showed her in a favourable light and not me... Can he not comprehend, that Joanna Yeates is the victim of a murder and no matter what said victim did is not going to be portrayed in an unfavourable light, which would almost suggest that it was something a victim deserved...


8 months, he states this twice, that 8 months after his arrest this article was published... Now I thought it was in October 2011 that the Financial Times first reported this statement, but I have found an article dated 31st August 2011...

From a website called indexoncensorship.org

Courts and controversy

31st August 2011

Quote
The UK press may show more restraint in reporting of high-profile cases if contempt laws are vigorously enforced, says Brian Cathcart

The next time there is a sensational murder — something on the scale of the Ipswich or Soham cases — you may notice something different about the media coverage. Reporters may show restraint of a kind that is not familiar. In fact, they might actually obey the law.

The Contempt of Court Act of 1981 prohibits all but the most straightforward reporting in a crime case from the moment “proceedings are active”, in other words once someone is arrested. The idea is to ensure that coverage does not interfere with the course of justice, for instance by prejudicing the eventual jury. But for years, when a big, competitive story came along, many editors and reporters in national media simply ignored the Act and continued to publish often grotesque allegations about a suspect after arrest and even sometimes after they were charged. Think Colin Stagg, Barry George, Karen Matthews and others — and Stagg and George were later shown to be innocent.

That may be about to change thanks to the actions of the attorney-general, Dominic Grieve. Not normally a man to cut the figure of a hero — a lean, bookish type, he was last seen filibustering awkwardly in the Commons when the government was under pressure over its links with the Murdochs — Grieve has done something genuinely brave. He has prosecuted the Daily Mirror and the Sun for contempt of court in the Chris Jefferies case, and he has won.
The consequences could be significant. Not only might future reporting of crime be more restrained, but we could even see fewer miscarriages of justice. I reported the first trial of Barry George for the murder of Jill Dando in 2002 and I am convinced that his wrongful conviction was partly due to the influence on the jury of the grossly prejudicial press reporting about him after his arrest. George spent seven years in jail before the conviction was overturned.

Chris Jefferies, you may remember, is the retired teacher in Bristol who was monstered by the tabloids before and after his arrest in January in connection with the Joanna Yeates murder, and who turned out to be totally innocent. (Another man confessed to the killing.) On the morning of 28 July, in what is becoming a familiar ritual in our courts, eight newspapers serially confessed to libelling Jefferies and agreed to pay him substantial damages.

On the afternoon of the same day, however, something much less familiar happened: the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and two other judges found the Mirror and the Sun guilty of contempt of court. They upheld Grieve’s argument that, by publishing “exceptionally adverse and hostile” articles about Jefferies while he was in custody, the papers had breached section 2 (2) of the Act, which makes unlawful any publication about an individual who is under arrest “which creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced”.

In a way, what is surprising here is not that a contempt prosecution happened and succeeded, but that it was necessary at all. The law is reasonably clear, after all, and is very well known to journalists. The problem has been that Grieve’s predecessors, most recently Baroness Scotland and Lord Goldsmith, failed to show the press that they would uphold it. The rarity of prosecutions, despite apparently flagrant breaches in high-profile cases, led editors to behave as though the Act was a dead letter and they could do what they liked.

Grieve therefore deserves credit for taking on the tabloids where his predecessors would not, and it is worth noting that he did so before the revelation that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked, and thus before these papers lost a lot of their bullying power. He didn’t kick them when they were down, in other words; he kicked them when they were still up.

Grieve has to share the credit, however, with the judges, who were placed in a tight corner by this case and who found an ingenious way out. For as long as the press has flouted the contempt law, judges have been finding excuses to try the victims anyway. When a trial begins and the defence claims it can’t be fair because their client has already been brutally convicted in the press, judges have developed a list of arguments to justifying carrying on regardless. Here is what they say. Jury members don’t remember the adverse reporting by the time the trial comes around (the “fade factor”), they know to concentrate on what is said in court (the “focus factor”) and they heed the instructions of judges to ignore extraneous matters. These arguments are entirely unsupported by evidence but they have had the merit, from the judges’ point of view, that important trials don’t have to be abandoned because of the excesses of the tabloids.

However, in the brief trial of the Sun and the Mirror, the judges found these arguments turned back on them. In effect the papers said: “If, when trials begin, you judges always insist that hostile reporting at the time of arrest doesn’t make a difference, then you can’t turn around now and say the opposite. It follows that whatever we wrote about Chris Jefferies at the time of his arrest, no matter how hostile, can’t now be described as prejudicial or even potentially prejudicial.”

It was a tricky problem for the judges and they simply side-stepped it, finding the Mirror and the Sun guilty on other, rather creative grounds. The Act speaks of publication “which creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced”. The judges avoided saying that in the Jefferies case potential proceedings might have been prejudiced; instead they concluded that they could have been impeded.

What this means is that they decided Jefferies had been painted in such an appalling light by these papers that if he had been charged he would have found it more difficult to construct a defence. Witnesses in his support, for example, might have decided not to come forward, either because they feared association with this supposedly monstrous person or because they believed his conviction was a foregone conclusion.

Both papers were undoubtedly surprised by this ingenious judgement — and the attorney-general probably was too. The point about “impedence” had not been prominent in the case he put forward in court — it was fourth on a list of five arguments and was presented rather tersely. Indeed he felt the need to reassure the judges it was not just a “makeweight” in his case.

The Mirror was fined £50,000 for contempt and the Sun £18,000. They were refused permission to appeal, though according to Jefferies’s solicitor, Louis Charalambous, they are considering petitioning the Supreme Court. On the whole it seems unlikely that a considered finding by the Lord Chief Justice and two other judges will be overturned.

Where does this leave us? Contempt law is back on the editors’ radar at a time when, with Lord Leveson’s inquiry beginning its investigation of press standards, those editors must already be minding their Ps and Qs. It might be argued that the fines were small — papers pay much more in libel damages and generally go on to libel again — but Grieve has put down an important marker and is free to use the impedance argument again if he wishes. If papers don’t heed this warning, moreover, he has it in his power to crank things up, notably by citing not only the newspaper but also the editor in person in a future case. That might concentrate minds.

We will have to wait and see, but there is a strong chance that in future sensational criminal cases we will see a return to what used to happen, generally, 20 years ago and more. So long as no one is in custody, papers will remain free to report what they choose (consistent with the libel laws), but from the moment proceedings are active, in other words normally from the moment someone is arrested, they must show restraint. And the same law applies to online reporting, bloggers and tweeters.

It is, without doubt, a constraint on free expression, and an important one. But it is surely better than locking up innocent people because, in effect, journalists don’t like the look of them.

Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London and is a founder of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart

I had no idea that such an article existed at this time, it certainly would not have reached most people, and it wasn't until October 2011 that the FT published said article.. But... I found this article via a blog which on the 4th September 2011 at:
https://inforrm.org/2011/09/04/opinion-courts-and-controversy-consequences-of-the-jeffries-contempt-case-brian-cathcart/

Another publication stating how CJ was vilified before a trial is to take place.. And the FT publishing whilst a trial is taking place.... Brian Cathcart is the founder of hacked off, a group that CJ is now involved with.

But... How were 3 publications allowed to be published just before and during a trial by a man whom must have been aware how this could prejudice said trial?? And why would he do such a thing??

I had thought that CJ was getting mixed up with the months, but he obviously hadn't and must have been following everything to do with himself and this case right up until and during said trial...

The 2 anonymous women had come forward who very conveniently no longer lived in Bristol.. who'd apparently suffered form of sexual harrassment and were prepared to insist that CJ was guilty of that harrassment, where did they go to?? That is quite a statement to make (imo), I hadn't realised that 2 women had made such claims against CJ...

The insistence that this was a sexually motivated murder "Erm and, then it seemed quite possible in the end this did indeed turn out to be absolutely true that there was a sexual motive for the a murder".

What??? How did he work that one out??? He is trying to get us to believe that he believes that the tabloids are full of untrue stories and he wants this to be banned, yet he has used information from tabloids to bolster his statement that this was a sexual motive for this murder, when none of the talk of watching porn etc, was introduced at trial...

Now you see why I think he is weird....  he can't have his cake an eat it.... No sexual motive was really ever established at trial and I am sure that CJ knows the difference between a kiss and a full on sexual assault...
He's an educated man apparently who surely can tell the difference between the two... An educated man whom should only take what has been stated at trial as true and not what tabloids tell us after said trial, which accusations were inadmissible at said trial, therefore accepting sensational journalism is ok, depending on whom it is levelled at!!!

When he  says to be fair some papers said some rather nice things about me and then later says : it was like er, a physical assault in fact it was probably worse than that because of the invasion of privacy, that was involved and the contempt and venom was more like a rape, it was being like.... er it was like being the the impersonal victim of a journalistic populist lust to humiliate and demonise anybody who didn't conform to a erm.. conventional sterotype. Is he talking about the contempt he believe the papers showed to him??  Why contempt, who is he??

I wonder if this is a case of someone whom appears to care more about his self image than the tragic Murder of Joanna Yeates... Cares more what people think about him and wants desperately to set this record straight.. And there is nothing wrong with setting a record straight, but what I find wrong is the constant self promotion of what happened in 2010/2011 by a man who says he is a private person, yet insists on letting us know 5 years after the initial events from his arrest, that he was vilified by the media..

He is the centre of this case, whether he likes it or not, he keeps putting himself there....  Yet he still doesn't tell us whom he saw at the gate... He still doesn't quell the questions some of us have.. He still hasn't mentioned Dr Vincent Tabak..

So yes I find this man odd... weird strange whatever you want to call it... making money and doing appearances off the back of a Murder of a young woman whom died in his property...

He appears to have forgotten all about Joanna Yeates and the loss of her life, and is more interested, to see who he can court for his own purpose...

Which without the media cat calling, he brings people to make up their own minds about his intentions..

Am I being unfair?? I don't think so, but you can all make your own minds up!!


http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/08/courts-and-controversy/

Edit... You may think I am picking on CJ, but I am not, he is the only person whom is speaking after the event...The only person whom has had a Netflix drama made.. So naturally I am drawn to what he has to state....

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2030 on: October 12, 2018, 02:42:29 PM »
Does Brian Cathcart know CJ???  I say this because I first believed that the only time he had interjected himself into this case and CJ was in August 2011 as CJ had stated.... But i find different now I have just looked....

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Index on Censorship

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The Yeates case, Chris Jefferries and contempt of court: Process, prejudice and the press, by @BrianCathcart http://bit.ly/hqVOtx

2:54 PM - 3 Jan 2011

Which leads to this article...

Due process, prejudice and the press
03 Jan 2011

Quote
England’s contempt of court laws have long been toothless, but the Internet and the smartphone have made it clear they are not fit for purpose, as demonstrated in the current “monstering” of murder suspect Chris Jefferies, says Brian Cathcart

It is an old problem, and an old argument: when a crime makes front-page headlines in modern Britain, the monstering of suspects and potential suspects in the tabloids is a matter of routine. Chris Jefferies in Bristol is only the latest — after the likes of Colin Stagg, Barry George, Karen Matthews, Robert Murat, the McCanns and Steve Wright — to be hysterically presented as a likely perpetrator in the press long before legal process had run its course.

Sometimes, as in the case of Jefferies, the attorney general publicly draws editors’ attention to the Contempt of Court Act of 1981, but it never makes any difference. They know and he knows that that law, supposedly intended to protect juries from improper influence, contains a loophole big enough to render it meaningless.

To convict a paper of contempt in such a case the Crown would have to prove there had been a “substantial” risk of “serious” prejudice. This, successive attorneys general have decided, is both unmeasurable and unprovable, which means it is also unenforceable. It follows that reporting of suspects around the time of arrest is unfettered.

Several defences are normally offered for this miserable state of affairs. One is that jurors don’t tend to remember what they have read in the press at the time of arrest or charging. Another is that juries heed the instructions they receive from judges to put such matters out of their minds. And a third is that there is no hard evidence juries are influenced by press coverage.

The feebleness of all this is demonstrated by a simple question: if you were a defence barrister going into a trial, would you be more confident if your client’s name had never appeared in the press, or if he had received the full-on sick-weirdo-loner treatment accorded to, say, Barry George? I followed the George case from beginning to end, and for what it is worth there is no doubt in my mind that prejudicial press reporting was one of the reasons he was wrongly convicted of the murder of Jill Dando.

One reason nothing has been done about this is that the status quo, ugly as it is, favours prosecutors and with them the state and the police. Imagine it was the other way around, and that pre-trial reporting in some way tended to make convictions in high-profile cases harder to achieve, rather than easier: how long do you think the 1981 Act would remain as it is?

But this is, as I mentioned, an old argument, and events are conspiring to make it an out-of-date one. Nothing said on either side of the contempt debate has much meaning when jurors have it in their power to research defendants and cases online from their phones at court or from their laptops and PCs at home in the evenings.

This means that they can access not only press reporting but blogs, tweets, Facebook pages and all sorts of data, public and sometimes otherwise. A defendant’s criminal record, or his opinions, or the opinions of others about him, may be available. The same applies to information about victims, and about witnesses, including expert witnesses.

Thanks to the internet, in fact, the whole idea of inadmissible evidence will be hopelessly compromised because, whatever is out there, jurors will be able to read it, just as they will be able to Google all that prejudicial press coverage from the time of arrest.

On this basis anyone convicted of a crime once (or even charged) will be more likely to be convicted a second time, whatever the evidence. Even prosecutors and attorneys general know that: it’s why previous convictions are not normally disclosed in court today. So, more innocent people will be convicted and more guilty people will go unpunished.

If you are a judge or an attorney general you would now point out that jurors are warned in the strongest terms not to research cases online, and indeed that they are prosecuted if caught doing so. But this is no more enforceable than the present contempt law: it is simply not possible to deny jurors access to the internet for the duration of a trial, and once they are online no force on Earth will prevent them, or at least many of them, from indulging their curiosity about the cases they are trying.

Again, the test is a simple question: if you were a defendant, would you trust the jury to obey the judge’s instruction not to Google your name? Of course you wouldn’t. How many of us would trust ourselves not to do it?

This problem is so big and so scary — it calls into question jury trial itself — that we may rest assured nothing will be done about it until the present system is utterly and publicly discredited. And in the meantime, when the tabloids pick a sensational case, they will continue to abuse suspects or potential suspects to their hearts’ content.

Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University.
Follow him on Twitter: @briancathcart

Eh... Why the blog write up?? He is telling that Sometimes, as in the case of Jefferies, the attorney general publicly draws editors’ attention to the Contempt of Court Act of 1981, but it never makes any difference. They know and he knows that that law, supposedly intended to protect juries from improper influence, contains a loophole big enough to render it meaningless.

To convict a paper of contempt in such a case the Crown would have to prove there had been a “substantial” risk of “serious” prejudice. This, successive attorneys general have decided, is both unmeasurable and unprovable, which means it is also unenforceable. It follows that reporting of suspects around the time of arrest is unfettered.
Meaning how do you prove contempt, yet apparently this issue went to court....

Why is Brian Cathcart mentioning CJ.. Why has this come to his attention, at what can only be described as a brief period of time after said publications.. CJ was released on the 1st January 2011 and within 2 days , we have a blog talking contempt.... We have Brian Cathcart, immediately coming to CJ's defence, when he realistically hasn't got the full picture as to what CJ's history may or may not be..... CJ is on bail at this point and for him to even be talking of CJ in any light, is in itself ignoring The Attorney General's advice to journalists...

CJ was on bail until March 2011 and making any comparisions to CJ in any light appears to be irresponsible at this juncture..

So why is Brian Cathcart drawing us to the attention of CJ??  Is it because they are friends?? I don't know... But there seems to have been a lot of emphasise placed upon CJ and CJ's innocence and vilification long before a trial has been done and dusted..

Which to my mind seems back to front...  Shouldn't it have been

* Trial First

* Conviction and sentence of defendant

* Take media to court

* I have proof from said trial that it wasn't me and you monstered me in the papers..

But it was...

* Media taken to court

* Stated wholly Innocent on 29th July 2011 because Dr Vincent Tabak was guilty

* Trial next

* Dr Vincent Tabak sentenced and convicted of said crime..

Why was Brian Cathcart involving himself with this case before a jury had made it's decision on the 28th October 2011... Why had Brian Cathcart who is supposed to understand not to say anything that may prejudice a trial whilst said trial is taking place and before said trial takes place, telling the world his opinions of what happened to CJ???

It appears wholly unprofessional (imo) and knowing as he has already stated that he is most unlikely to be arrested or taken to court for contempt, he happily has done just that... Told a story that may or may not have influenced a juries opinion of a defendant whom is on trial... A defendent that apparently had tried to implicate his landlord CJ, in the disappearance and murder of Joanna Yeates....

A Defendant who's honesty would have been under the juries gaze... But when they have the ability to find out about CJ at anytime during this trial, they cannot help but use the reports they have read as supporting evidence of Dr Vincent Tabak's guilt and lies he apparently told....

So Prejudical... I would say yes... I would say that is grounds to question said trial... But that is me....!!



https://twitter.com/IndexCensorship/status/21942514177024000
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/01/joanna-yeates-chris-jefferies-murder-contempt/

Offline [...]

Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2031 on: October 12, 2018, 03:00:31 PM »
Many examples... and there are more... of prejudicing a trial and future trial of Dr Vincent Tabak... Yet apparently it was OK to do so.... !!!!


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Brian Cathcart

 
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The Sun and Daily Mirror go on trial tomorrow for contempt of court in their coverage of the Joanna Yeates murder.

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Brian Cathcart

 
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Attorney general should warn press NOW over further contempts in the Yeates case and not leave it until it's too late.

11:13 AM - 20 Jan 2011

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Mark Williams-Thomas

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“@BrianCathcart: I've interviewed Chris Jefferies, the Bristol ex-teacher bulk-libelled in the Jo Yeates case. Quite a story. FT Sat mag

6:12 PM - 7 Oct 2011


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Julie Tomlin

 
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MT @SamiraAhmedUK: Essential read - .@BrianCathcart on trial by media of Joanna Yeates' landlord Christopher Jefferies http://on.ft.com/qht1bS

10:22 AM - 8 Oct 2011


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Tony Tassell

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err the link for the Christopher Jefferies piece by @briancathcart was http://on.ft.com/pXaWhS

12:17 PM - 10 Oct 2011

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Brian Cathcart

 
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The ordeal of Christopher Jefferies. Exclusive, in-depth interview with the Bristol man vilified in the press. http://tinyurl.com/6leeywv

5:55 PM - 7 Oct 2011

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Kingston Journalism

 
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Kingston professor @BrianCathcart: After the Jefferies contempt case is change on the way for crime reporting? http://tinyurl.com/3f5rkcy

10:39 AM - 1 Sep 2011


https://twitter.com/BrianCathcart/status/87999994187087872
https://twitter.com/BrianCathcart/status/28047346575085569
https://twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/122358677175939073
https://twitter.com/JulieTomlin/status/122602847811551232
https://twitter.com/TonyTassell/status/123356432597925889
https://twitter.com/BrianCathcart/status/122354459723563008
https://twitter.com/Kingstonjourno/status/109198566349742081

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2032 on: October 12, 2018, 03:08:46 PM »
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D Giannoulopoulos

 
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Extraordinary night! Chairing panel @RegentStCinema w/ inspiring Ch Jefferies, electric @BrianCathcart & beloved film maker Peter Morgan.
 

1:58 PM - 1 Jun 2017



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HoneymoonGondol

 
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RT D Giannoulopoulos: Christopher introducing "The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies" @RegentStCinema @Knowin... https://twitter.com/dimitriosatBLS/status/869962575043325954#labnol



When does this self promotion stop... When does he sit back and think, I have said enough, after all this is really about The Murder of Joanna Yeates, a woman who was Murdered and her life was cut short....

Or is it a case that CJ is trying to keep this case in the public eye???

I'll let you make your own minds up!


https://twitter.com/DimitriosGian/status/870263202180988930
https://twitter.com/HoneymoonGondol/status/869965524289060864

Offline justsaying

Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2033 on: October 12, 2018, 03:22:35 PM »
Nine, you will probably never understand what CJ is doing because you have never walked in his shoes. He is not making money out of a tragic murder, he is making money out of what happened to himself, and why not? You have come rather close a few times to pointing your finger at this man for allegedly killing Joanna Yeats. If I were you I would be hoping he never reads what you have had to say about him. You could find yourself in court for slander! Everyone is a suspect apart from the person who admitted the crime. Please get a grip on reality and stop pointing your finger at innocent people!

jixy

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2034 on: October 12, 2018, 03:25:36 PM »
 8@??)(  very well said justsaying

jixy

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2035 on: October 12, 2018, 03:26:42 PM »
This is getting very creepy now.

Ive just watched Victor Nealon telling his story then I read this! shocking!

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2036 on: October 12, 2018, 03:31:38 PM »
Chris Jefferies, you may remember, is the retired teacher in Bristol who was monstered by the tabloids before and after his arrest in January in connection with the Joanna Yeates murder, and who turned out to be totally innocent. (Another man confessed to the killing.) On the morning of 28 July, in what is becoming a familiar ritual in our courts, eight newspapers serially confessed to libelling Jefferies and agreed to pay him substantial damages.

On the afternoon of the same day, however, something much less familiar happened: the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and two other judges found the Mirror and the Sun guilty of contempt of court. They upheld Grieve’s argument that, by publishing “exceptionally adverse and hostile” articles about Jefferies while he was in custody, the papers had breached section 2 (2) of the Act, which makes unlawful any publication about an individual who is under arrest “which creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced”.

What is most spectacular about the date of this publication, it was before a hearing in September 2011 in which Dr Vincent Tabak apparently signed a statement affectively admitting what took place, yet they contents of what took place, where not divulged until the trial in October 2011..

How could anyone be sure that Dr Vincent Tabak would not retract any plea he had apparently made in May 2011, no evidence pointed to Dr Vincent Tabak killing Joanna yeates... Other than Dr Vincent tabaks story on the stand....

So.......  why is Brian Cathcart stating that : (Another man confessed to the killing.) ????

What does he mean??
Dr Vincent Tabak made a plea....
When and where did he confess??
 And how does Brian Cathcart know when this publication is posted on the 31st August 2011, that Dr Vincent Tabak apparently confessed??

The only apparent confession that Dr Vincent Tabak is supposed to have made was to a man assuming the role of Chaplain, being Brotherton at Long Lartin in February 2011, which did not come to anyones attention until the trial in October 2011... A confession one could hardly agree it was....

But Brian Cathcart a man whom should know the difference between a confession and a Plea, should not be telling everyone before a trial that Dr Vincent Tabak confessed to this murder, planting in the minds of the jury and supporting the idea that what Brotherton had to say at trial about said confession, must be true!!!

Prejudicial..... If that reporting isn't irresponsible and prejudicial... I don't know what is!!

It make me wonder what sources Brian Cathcart has.............

Offline [...]

Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2037 on: October 12, 2018, 03:36:48 PM »
Nine, you will probably never understand what CJ is doing because you have never walked in his shoes. He is not making money out of a tragic murder, he is making money out of what happened to himself, and why not? You have come rather close a few times to pointing your finger at this man for allegedly killing Joanna Yeats. If I were you I would be hoping he never reads what you have had to say about him. You could find yourself in court for slander! Everyone is a suspect apart from the person who admitted the crime. Please get a grip on reality and stop pointing your finger at innocent people!

I am not pointing the finger at CJ... I am NOT understanding why a man is courting the media 6/7 years after an event, in which he purports that he is a very private individual..

I am commenting on what he himself stated on said video...

I am trying to understand why he feels the need to keep telling his story... and yes press intrusion, is a massive problem...


If what I have posted is slanderous, please get a moderator to remove it... I'll apologise now...

Nine

Offline justsaying

Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2038 on: October 12, 2018, 03:46:58 PM »
I personally think everything you have suggested in relation to innocent people should be taken down - including CJ, Greg Reardon and the victims parents.

When do you tell yourself enough is enough Nine? When do you realise this is about the tragic killing of a young woman? When do you stop advocating for her killer? You could ask yourself the same questions you ask in relation to CJ who has done nothing but promote how badly he was treated!

jixy

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Re: The Defence Will State Their Case
« Reply #2039 on: October 12, 2018, 03:52:19 PM »
You ask about others not being able to comprehend. I think your posts are disgusting

You have no right to decide how someone wrongly accused of an horrendous crime claims to feel. His feelings were real to HIM

Unlike Tabak and all this nonsense about his innocence, the words he has yet say himself!