John Curtis - Jan 2015 ‘Righting Wrongs’
David Rose - Oct 2011 ‘If they didn't do it, who did?’
“”Until today, the CCRC’s proceedings have taken place behind closed doors. Not any longer. Present while the four men weigh Hallam’s future are this reporter, and Live’s photographer. With the permission of Hallam and his family, we have been granted exclusive and unprecedented access.
“The CCRC has its critics. Meeting that ‘real possibility’ test through the discovery of fresh evidence or other compelling material not presented at a trial is not easy, and having considered more than 13,000 cases to date, the commission has referred only 478.
The legal academic Michael Naughton, of Bristol University, says the ‘real possibility’ test has made the commission overly timid, unwilling to risk referring a case where the outcome looks doubtful.
Yet to anyone who dealt with the system that existed to deal with alleged miscarriages of justice before the CCRC’s creation, it represents a significant advance. Before 1997 they were handled by a section of the Home Office, C3.
“Another prominent case is that of Jeremy Bamber, who was convicted in 1986 of murdering five members of his family in their farmhouse at Tolleshunt D’Arcy in Essex. The CCRC referred him to the Appeal Court in 2002, where he lost.
Earlier this year, having spent thousands of hours investigating a further application submitted by his lawyers, it reached a provisional decision that the points raised in this latest application were not compelling enough to meet the ‘real possibility’ test, though he still has a final chance to make further submissions.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2042831/Not-jailed-murder-actually-committed-crime--meet-commission-helps-clear-them.html
David Rose, alongside Satish Sakar & George Gretton commented on a 2014 article by Jon Robins for The Justice Gap headed,
’IPSO: Will new press regulator prove to be another toothless poodle?They stated,
Satish Sekar says:
September 28, 2014 at 12:12 pm
Where has self-regulation succeeded? It is designed to maintain control while giving the impression of dealing with complaints. The press and other media are far from alone in taking advantage of this. Only independent supervision and investigation of complaints can deliver impartiality.
David Rose says:
September 30, 2014 at 9:24 am
There is a huge problem with this argument: the basic premise that the notion of press “regulation” has any place in a democratic society. I accept there do need to be laws, some of which could be said to curb the absolute freedom of speech: against, for example, the publication of paedophile pornography, and – within strict limits – defamation.
But the point that Hacked Off and Evan Harris have always missed is that the phone hacking scandal never had anything to do with “regulators”, or the supposed failure of the old PCC. It involved law breaking, pure and simple, and the failure of the police to enforce the law – largely, it seems, because of the unhealthy relationship between senior figures at Scotland Yard and News International, as it then was.
We do not need a regulator. We need something like a US first amendment – not the watery substitute of the ECHR article 10, hedged as it is with crippling caveats. Hacked Off has simply never grasped what a free press means, and why any method used to curb it must be fraught with peri. The Royal Charter they support demonstrates this amply.
I have always argued that the Leveson inquiry was a preposterous, rigged, celebrity dog and pony show. It allowed “victims” to tell their stories on the basis that whatever they said must be true, without subjecting their assertions to any form of interrogation. Its truly terrible report has been justified by Hacked Off’s constant waving of the bloody shirt of egregious cases such as those of the McCanns. Hacked Off’s main spokesmen are a failed MP who was looking for a job and ought, as a supposed “Liberal Democrat”, to have known better (Harris) and a professor of journalism at a third rate university (Brian Cathcart). It’s time they stopped setting the terms of this debate. Too much is at stake.
The time has come to remember statements such as that of the Virginia legislature in 1776: “The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments.” Why is America, despite its flaws, a freer country than the UK? Because of this text: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” IPSO, PCC, or some future Leveson-certified body: they can be loved only by those who appreciate the firm smack of authoritarian government and imposed conformity. We should reject them all.
Satish Sekar says:
October 1, 2014 at 8:16 am
And what should be done to control unethical journalism. I’m talking about sensational, misleading, inaccurate and ethical reporting. Journalism should never be a free pass to lie and deceive. At least two editions of a well respected allegedly investigative documentary series had preconceived agendas that had scant regard for the truth and its complaints system did nothing to investigate. It took the word of the journalists despite clear proof of wrongdoing. Press freedom must not become a justification or licence of media to abuse trust.
Satish Sekar says:
October 1, 2014 at 8:18 am
ethical should read unethical in the second sentence.
George Gretton says:
October 1, 2014 at 9:27 pm
YES!… Satish, Kindred Spirit.
I need add nothing. I will quote you.
“Press freedom must not become a justification or licence of media to abuse trust.”
ABUSE TRUST… you use the most fundamental and unambiguous language.
Thank you. I happen to have a Doctorate or three in what it is like to have one’s trust heinously betrayed.
Yours, George Gretton
George Gretton says:
October 1, 2014 at 8:39 am
Question: “Are all supposed journalists whiter that white individuals of impeccable ethics and integrity?”
Answer: “You cannot be serious!”
Question: “Why do the Laws of DEFAMATION exist?
Answer: “Because some really s..mmy and abusive s..mbags mendaciously ABUSED their right to Free Speech, so as to ABUSE others.”
Question: “Do individuals in the Psychopath / Sociopath spectrum exist in every walk of life, at all levels?”
Answer: “Yes”.
Question: “Is it wise to put any individual or group of individuals on a pedestal?”
Long Answer: “No; that’s bonkers.”
Yours, George
https://www.thejusticegap.com/ipso-will-new-press-regulator-prove-another-toothless-poodle/
