“Brian Cathcart (born 26 October 1956) is an Irish-born journalist, academic and media campaigner based in the United Kingdom. He is professor of journalism at Kingston University London [1] and in 2011 was a founder of Hacked Off,[2] which campaigns for a free and accountable press. His books include Were You Still Up for Portillo? (1997), The Case of Stephen Lawrence (1999), The Fly in the Cathedral (2004) and The News From Waterloo (2015).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cathcart“
Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University London and was a founder of the Hacked Off campaign. He served as specialist adviser to the commons media select committee in 2008-10. Irish by background, he was a journalist at Reuters, the Independent papers and the New Statesman, and has written books about the murders of Stephen Lawrence and Jill Dando, as well as on the history of nuclear science. He tweets as @BrianCathcart
Read more at:https://www.byline.com/journalist/brianjcathcart/biography
Police defend Dando murder hunt - July 2001“Brian Cathcart, who has written a book about the murder, told the BBC that "fundamental mistakes" had been made in the handling of forensic evidence.
Chief among these was the coat which provided a speck of firearms residue linking George to the crime scene.
'Beggars belief'
Mr Cathcart said: "That a coat which had been sealed in an evidence bag should have been removed from that bag to be photographed and then replaced in that bag.
"That it was photographed in a studio where firearms were also photographed.
"This was before it was ever forensically examined. It beggars belief.
"Something similar happened with a lot of the other evidence that was removed from Barry George's flat. It was put in a depository where there was a firearms cache."
But DS Campbell said he was convinced police had got the right man.
"This has been a thorough investigation. I believe the right verdict has been reached," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1420037.stmA Question or Identity by Brian Cathcart July 2002“When the judge summed up in the trial of Barry George last year, one instruction he gave the jury was that if they were not sure – and he stressed that word "sure" – about the identification evidence, then they must return a verdict of not guilty. In other words, no matter what they felt about anything else they had heard in court, if they were not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that George was at the murder scene that morning, they had to acquit him.
Given such a clear instruction, it might seem fair to conclude that this part of the evidence at least must have been sound, that we can be confident that the man now serving life imprisonment for murdering Jill Dando was there or thereabouts, roughly at the time of the deed. Unhappily for Barry George and – unless something changes when he appeals against his conviction next week – unhappily for defendants in other trials yet to come, that is very far from being the case.
For although police traced dozens of people who used the west London street where Dando died on that morning, only one of them ever categorically identified George. And that witness, a local woman called Susan Mayes, said that she had seen him four and a half hours before the murder was committed. The sighting was at 7am, while the murder occurred at about 11.30am. And the circumstances are as worrying as the timing. The man that Ms Mayes saw across the road was wiping the windscreen of a double-parked, maroon-coloured car and wore a black suit with a white shirt open at the neck – all details difficult to reconcile with Barry George in the role of murderer
Since a double-parked car in Gowan Avenue would inevitably block the way, we can be sure it would have attracted attention if it had stayed there long, and yet no other witness saw it. The likelihood, therefore, is that it drove off soon after this sighting. By the same token, none of the other people out and about in the half hour after 7am saw this man. The odds, therefore, surely favour him getting into the car (which he had been wiping) and driving away. Yet Barry George can't drive and has never owned a car, maroon or otherwise
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/a-question-of-identity-183860.htmlPrejudice? What prejudice? By Brian Cathcart June 2007“When Barry George was arrested, newspapers branded him a weirdo and a loner - and we are asked to be
Of course, it is not the fault of the newspapers if the courts can’t be trusted to get decisions right. They just did what papers do. Having dutifully sat on some lurid (if ancient) material about George right through the trial, they unleashed it the moment the jury said “guilty” - photos of him with guns and a gas mask, a 20-year-old attempted rape conviction, an arrest outside Kensington Palace and more.
https://www.newstatesman.com/media/2007/06/barry-george-loner-convictionDando case evidence 'unreliable' November 2007“The day after the verdict, campaign group Miscarriages of Justice claimed the case had all the hallmarks of injustice.
Brian Cathcart, who has written a book about the murder, said George was a "vulnerable" defendant and insisted that there was an "absence of motive"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7073564.stmFinancial Times by Brian Cathcart January 2013“The implications of possible media prejudice go far wider than this one case. Only last summer Dominic Grieve, the
Attorney General, argued in court that some of the reporting of the arrest of Christopher Jefferies, who turned out to be wholly innocent of the murder of Joanna Yeates, would have prejudiced his chances of a fair trial.
I followed closely the trial of Barry George, wrongly convicted of the 1999 murder of Jill Dando and eventually freed on appeal. So weak was the case against him that I am convinced the lurid media reporting at the time of his arrest influenced the original verdict
Courts and Controversy – consequences of the Jefferies contempt case” – Brian Cathcart“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.
“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.
https://inforrm.org/2011/09/04/opinion-courts-and-controversy-consequences-of-the-jeffries-contempt-case-brian-cathcart/Hacked Off – Why The Secrecy? by @tabloidtroll on April 30, 2012“The industry I have loathed and loved for more decades than I care to remember is going through the sort of public beasting which was reserved for witches in medieval England. No doubt there were excesses and a few individuals will no doubt find themselves before the courts. Should it emerge that they were indeed guilty of criminality, and not have a legitimate reason for their actions, then I am sure they will be punished.
The trouble – as many tabloid journalists like myself see it – is that there seems to be a rampaging to desire to flay all of us, and do so now, without any form of trial or jury. Unsurprisingly those at the forefront of this campaign – take a bow Labour member of parliament Tom Watson – are politicians who rarely see eye-to-eye with the media. Many are indeed still recovering from the trauma of having their dodgy expenses laid bare before their constituents courtesy of the press. Mr Watson, for example, claimed the maximum food allowance and had a penchant for food shopping at Marks and Spencer on the taxpayer. The excuse that they doled out was they were told it was OK to do it, yet the same MPs now deny that explanation to journalists working for News International.
But the attacks have not just come from MPs. The Guardian newspaper has also been revelling in reminding us what they have been saying for years – namely that tabloid newspapers are “just awful”. The fact that many of their most senior journalists came from those self-same tabloids – and indeed feature in the Motorman Report – is blatantly over looked. Who can also have failed to notice that the paper – which already has readers leaving it in droves – is so much duller without the News of the World to re-write on Monday.
However, one of the most remarkable features of recent months has been the emergence of the so-called Media Standards Trust, a registered charity, which also runs the Hacked Off campaign group. Few journalists who have covered the Leveson Inquiry at the High Court will not have run into one of the trust’s staff – tweeting from the hearing but most definitely not tweeting all of it. Indeed if you want a fair and accurate report of each day’s evidence I strongly suggest you look elsewhere. Ben Fenton, of the FT, is an excellent example of someone tweeting all the evidence – without bias or slant.
The open hostility this group shows towards tabloids is all there for all to see – sweeping generalisations such as “you all make things up” are liberally espoused by its co-ordinator, a former local newspaper reporter whose only experience of working at a higher level was as an intern at the Independent. Martin Moore and
Brian Cathcart, the most public faces of the campaign, are further examples of the anti-tabloid agenda which sadly categorises the trust.
Recently I decided to take a further look at the Media Standards Trust – particularly keen to see if it was meeting the standards it was now apparently requiring of the rest of us. According to its website it is independent – yet has board members from the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian, and also from the Pearson Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Financial Times.
Equally against this independence claim is the powerful presence of one Charles Manby, the former worldwide head of Goldman Sachs. This bank has more reason to fear the media than most, after it was revealed that it playing a leading role in the sub prime mortgage collapse, which in turn has seen economies hit around the world. According to the charity’s accounts he was the largest individual donor back in 2007/08 – the same year that his bank was involved in the scandalous sub prime mortgage fiasco.
Perhaps mindful of the sort of image this conveys, or perhaps because Mr Manby and other secret donors were keen to keep their contributions private, the Media Standards Trust has not published details of who gives what since then. So, for example, the 2010 accounts show donations and gifts of £45,059 without any explanation of who, what, or why.
One would imagine that an organisation such as that run by Messrs Moore and
Cathcart would be keen to explain all of this – particularly as they regaularly lambast tabloids for a lack of openness and hidden agendas. Last week I tweeted Mr Moore a whole series of questions – Hacked Off’s initial response was to suggest that because I don’t reveal my name then I am not entitled to the answers. Thankfully others pointed out that this was hardly an example of transparency – and its co-ordinator promised Moore would answer when he returned from holiday.
On Sunday he responded to the tweets at 8am – saying he would be addressing the issue once he had un-packed. Sadly this proved to be something of a false dawn – all he has done in two further tweets is post a link to accounts dating back to 2010. Then on Monday I put to him Mr Manby’s contribution and asked for a breakdown of who has given what since – the silence back from the organisation which wants “openness” and “accountability” has been deafening.
It appears that a charitable trust does not think it should be answerable to anyone – least of all the media it now seeks to change and – wait for it – make more open. No answers then to why a banker is on its board, what donations, if any, it has received from banks, how much it has been receiving on donations from unspecified individuals, or why it is claiming to be independent when the Guardian and the FT are involved.
My colleagues in the tabloid media say they have now lost all respect for Mr Moore and his cronies – so quite how they expect to garner our support is beyond me.
@tabloidtroll
https://annaraccoon.com/2012/04/30/hacked-off-why-the-secrecy/Brian Cathcart: a traitor to journalism – or voice of reason?“Hacked Off's executive director sat through the night to broker the Leveson deal – and has been condemned by colleagues for his role.
But he says it was vital to cure newspaper abuseshttps://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/mar/23/brian-cathcart-traitor-journalism-reasonBrian Cathcart, yet ANOTHER self serving, self promoting hypocrit!
“Cathcart may not approve of tabloid journalists, but he certainly knows how to behave like one.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9963263/The-truth-about-Hacked-Offs-media-coup.htmlHacked Off founder Brian Cathcart has accused Culture Secretary Matt Hancock of falsely crediting the Daily Mail with helping to bring Stephen Lawrence’s killers to justice - March 2018“Cathcart described the claim as a “political lever being used to manipulate us all in the culture wars that surround our press” and a “gross disservice” to the Lawrence family.
In response, the Daily Mail has said it remains “proud” of its 20-year campaign regarding the case.
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/hacked-off-founder-brian-cathcart-challenges-daily-mails-role-in-bringing-stephen-lawrence-killers-to-justice/
