Do contempt laws regarding English criminal cases affect Scottish newspapers, or are they country-specific like injunctions?
second arrest really does make it look like a ‘weirdo sweep’.
re. the law: semi-hilarious that the government that wants to get rid of juries can’t see how googlecache is changing everything.
I don’t know about contempt, but wasn’t there a case recently where someone won a libel action against someone who defamed him/her in a chatroom?
I thought that’s all that ever went on in chat rooms.
Do contempt laws regarding English criminal cases affect Scottish newspapers, or are they country-specific like injunctions?
in the case of the paper i work for, yes: it’s a scottish national paper that is sold (in small numbers) in england, so it counts as publishing there, and needs to watch what the fuck it says etc.
i’m intrigued, though, as to what the case might be for—say—the scottish edition of the daily mail, which obviously doesn’t sell in england. hmm.
that said, i think any media lawyer’s advice would be the same: don’t fuckin’ risk it, sonny :)
semi-hilarious that the government that wants to get rid of juries can’t see how googlecache is changing everything
so OTM.
but wasn’t there a case recently where someone won a libel action against someone who defamed him/her in a chatroom
not sure, but i really can’t see how this couldn’t have happened yet. i need to bring myself up to speed with internet law; or, rather, with how the UK’s creaking and antiquated judicial system is being applied to this brave new world.
like we were saying at work the other night: the problem is that many of the existing laws affecting the media are absolutely useless when it comes to policing the internet, and trying to simply impose them would be a dreadful cludge. but, you know, in the middle of a soi-disant “war on terror” i guess we’ve got rather more important legal issues to worry about :/
in the case of the paper i work for, yes: it’s a scottish national paper that is sold (in small numbers) in england, so it counts as publishing there, and needs to watch what the fuck it says etc.
That’ll be why Neil Lennon sued the Daily Record in an English court over the “Thugs & Thieves” thing a couple of years back.
I’ve noticed, actually, that in the past 6 months or so the Record has become a lot more available in England. Most supermarket chains down here seem to stock it now, in fact.
I don’t know about contempt, but wasn’t there a case recently where someone won a libel action against someone who defamed him/her in a chatroom?
tell you what: you and i should try suit and counter-suit over that grammar thread ;)
xpost: you poor sods.
Did a wee search and it seems Lennon went to England because the process is quicker and the damages greater.
OK after googling I found the chatroom libel case. The complainant got a £30,000 out-of-court settlement from one person, and £17,000 in a court decision from another person. Blimey! So if anyone feels the need to let off some steam, please feel free to abuse and libel the crap out of me to your heart’s content, right here, right now. I can take it.
Also while googling I found a recent case where the New York Times blocked its report on the perpetrators of the failed tube bombings to UK readers, for fear of falling foul of contempt laws.
Blimey.
Ailsa, we were just kidding! (at least, I was) :-)
No sense in backtracking now, you accused me of killing two people up there. Lawyers!
xx is really 20, isn’t it?
(if ailsa suddenly calls herself ailsa_xxi and I don’t post here anymore, well, I’m just saying...)
:-)
thanks for the link (and the NYT info). it seems things are as vague as i feared—at least wrt defamation—and there’s still no real precedent. i guess caution should be our watchword, always. from now on i’m going to be NICE TO EVERYBODY :)
... issued a claim for libel after being called a “nazi”, “racist bigot” and “nonce” during a debate in an internet forum on the war in Iraq. Although accusations like these are common on the internet ...
“commmon”? “so devalued as to be meaningless”, i’d argue.
Exactly, it’s like taking some wee cnut to court for claiming to have fucked your mother.
“but Gerry, I’m your Dad!”
“yer a wee cnut!”
“so devalued as to be meaningless”, i’d argue.
that jeremy clarkson’s a total fucking jeremy clarkson.
Yeah, but if going “that car’s a bit gay” is offensive*, then pull down the shutters on ILX now.
* especially to people watching Jeremy Clarkson, who is not exactly your sensitive PC-correctness-gone-mad type of presenter
offensive != potentially leading to litigation
You’re comparing apples and bigoted cuntish albeit occasionally funny tv presenters
In any case, there’s a massive difference in saying something on TV with an audience in the millions, and saying something on an overheated message board with an audience of dozens. That chatroom libel case seems to set a dangerous (and unenforceable) precedent in assuming all forms of “publishing” are essentially equivalent. On the strength of that case, there must be literally hundreds of potential libel awards generated by ILX alone.
Littlejohn in total fucking cunt shockah:
Well, no, I presume the new Fiat Brava (or whatever) isn’t going to sue on grounds of its sexuality being called into question. However, if I said something and someone on ILX said “stop being so gay” I’m hardly going to brandish a lawsuit at them, because calling people gay is what (some) people do. It’s a silly little insult. Same as when people call people Nazis in chatrooms. Same as Stan calling me a murderer up there. Where do you draw the line?
xpost, yeah, that too.
I’m astounded at the backslapping going on in the comments on that Littlejohn thing.
I notice he’s managed to squeeze in a wee dig at his old pal Will Self
Really, if you don’t own a copy already, go out and buy Dead Horse by Cassetteboy for the Jeremy Clarkson track alone (track 48).
bit of history behind that one—http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1390395.stm
xpost
At last someone who speaks the truth.
- Anon, Norwich
The ONLY man in Fleet Street who tells it how it is
Bravo Sir Richard..name your job in government and we will put you there!
- Donald Dehaviland, Fleet Hampshire
Absolutely spot on Richard as usual. I think the next government should be formed by a party of like minds with Richard as PM. Political and emotional correctness is a modern cancer that has to be stopped for the sake of an ordered society.
- Karl, Lancs, UK
A brutal, but honest appraisal of the situation in Ipswich. Shame more people don’t have the courage to say it.
Also if Gordon Brown didn’t know how all the money was being sourced, the Labour Party is more dysfunctional than I first thought.
- Roy, Middlesbrough
After serving 36 years in the Police Force I cannot not disagree with any of RL’s comments. He is the absolute realist. Well said.
- Robert, Hull, East Yorks.
Well done for saying exactly what everyone was thinking about the Ipswich murders. Very sad but as has been said before: a serial killer’s victims often meet him half-way.
- Tony Garstang, Marlow
Spot on, the truth hurts.
- Chris S, Tallinn Estonia
That chatroom libel case seems to set a dangerous (and unenforceable) precedent in assuming all forms of “publishing” are essentially equivalent. On the strength of that case, there must be literally hundreds of potential libel awards generated by ILX alone.
exactly. even on this minuscule microcosm of ILX, i bet a few spins of the “random” button would unearth a handful of potentially actionable posts.
which is MADNESS.
we should go underground, encrypt everything and electrocute anyone who even attempts to google us :)
xposts: woah, hang on. i need to go read this littlejohn thing.
Yeah, there’s really a Tony Garstang in Marlow.
What does Martin Mere of Irlam have to say on this matter?
OK, one brief comment:
They weren’t going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur.
And this also applies to Richard Littlejohn.
That’s it.
motherFUCK, littlejohn, you really are the people’s shit, aren’t you?
We do not share in the responsibility for either their grubby little existences or their murders. Society isn’t to blame.
i’m surprised you’re not with maggie on the very nature of society, you fucking distended penis.
now come on, you vile shit-for-brains waste of oxygen. fucking sue me :)
How many of those comments are from whatever message board it was that I googled before that was running a competition to see who could get the most ridiculously parodic comment onto the Daily Mail messageboards without anyone spotting they were taking the piss?
(this doesn’t excuse Littlejohn for being a cock of the highest order, obviously)
now, don’t encourage him with that “cock of the highest order” stuff...
I wish my uncle (who led a city’s vice squad) were alive to kick the living shit out of Littlejohn for that asking-for-it bullshit. Death is an occupational hazard of LIFE.
Women who go on the game in small towns and cities are often trapped in the cycle by their own trepidations, and are intimidated away from the help they need because they’ve been involved with illegal activity and think they will get ‘in trouble’ from authority or from physical or psychological abuse at the hands of pimps and johns. Drug use is not even the half of it; it is perhaps more realistic to point to a whole cohort that keeps these women in one place and uses them like man-sized Kleenex, and that includes people like LJ who seem to believe that if they’re dirty girls that’s all they’re good for.
Most supermarket chains down here seem to stock it now, in fact.
You live fairly close to Scotland though, don’t you FP? I bet you can’t get it in Somerset.
I bet you can!
(spotted last weekend)
You can deffo get it in London, at even the shitiest out-of-way newsagents.
you can get it in london, but then you can get lots of foreign papers in london. do they get censored if they include details of eg the london bomber trial?
Not *that* close to Scotland—it’s as far from here to Carlisle as it is to London.
I thought you were up in the north east, FP. My mistake. Gosh, do they really have it everywhere now then? Aren’t we a lucky nation, eh?
(x-post yo L!)
In theory those papers would be barred a la Spycatcher but in practice, not really.
Well I’m kind of in the north-east—the nearest big city is Hull.
“do they get censored if they include details of eg the london bomber trial?”
They usually just don’t distribute that edition, or if the sale is big enough to warrant it they do a special run. There’s no censorship — you can publish what you like, but you might end up facing a judge for it.
xpost
Well, yeh, sometimes the govt will take out an injuction to prevent publication of state secrets etc. But almost every time they forget about Scotland’s different legal system, and we get to publish it all. Then the next day all the Londons publish it because it’s “in the public domain already”.
Can I just say I would prefer to buy a car that was at least a little bit gay? Why would that be a bad thing?
You’d keep getting read-ended
rear-ended, even
comedy is all about timing :(
rofl!
Second man arrested now named by locals (though not confirmed by police) as a worker at Felixstowe Docks called Steven Wright.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6192085.stm
His best friend has just been on the BBC 10 o’clock news telling everyone how Wright is a very nice quiet chap.
GUILTY!
HAHAHAH. the fact i knew that was coming as i scrolled down only made it better. the fact it’s such a craptacular eighties cheesy pic makes it borderline godlike.
these two loners double-teamed the prostitutes? or the police are lame?
yea someone linked that. fucking disgusting.
So is this Steven Wright on mysapce?
they didn’t publish my comment
oh whoopsie, sorry
there are *some* comments that don’t make me wish for all-out nuclear war there.
oh it’s worth the collateral damage surely?
Front page of The Sun has a picture of the latest suspect choking his wife.
ROFL
hahahaha. this country.
“DNA at 3 Sites”
shock news!!!!
oh fucking rofl lol !!
It seems (allegedly, according to unnamed sources etc etc laywers gtf nothing to see here) the first two victims were dumped in water and there was no DNA evidence linking the 2nd suspect to them but the next 3 victims were dumped on land and there was.
Maybe that’s why two men are in custody?
Is he strangling her because Noel is dating her? (top corner, left)
is that the noodle vague guy?
I wonder how they got that picture. Would you give a picture (especially one like that) of a friend/relative/neighbour/collegue to the papers before you’re sure he’s guilty?
oh wait. givesell, right? :-/
It’s his ex wife (or one of them, he’s on his 3rd marriage, she was his 2nd wife), so she might not give a shit about him. His Dad was spilling his guts too as they haven’t spoken for years.
At least she survived :-)
xxxpost
oops, I look a bit like a murder suspect roffle.
they let you use the internet?
the woman he’s “strangling” looks like one of our senior editors. it’s a small and not particularly amusing or coincidental world.
That was the first draft of the Sherman brothers’ song for Disney.
Wot’s with the Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker mouth?
you tell us
I’m only allowed one internet post.
Police said the first man arrested Tom Stephens, 37, has been released on police bail pending further inquiries.
“There have been significant ongoing inquiries and interviews during the period that these men have been in custody.
”As a result of these inquiries, the 37-year-old man from Trimley was this evening released on police bail pending further inquiries. Police will not name this man at this stage.
“The second man, Stephen Wright, from Ipswich, has been charged with the murder of all five women.”
I wonder if Myspace will reinstate his page now?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/6202691.stm
Before the hearing Mr Wright’s solicitor, Paul Osler, said: “Of course, anybody accused of these sorts of offences is going to experience trauma, but he is bearing up well.”
Phew. At least he is doing well.
(WTF?)
Presumption of innocence?
Presumption of innocence = we shouldn’t even know his name until he’s been formally charged. And after that, nothing, not how he’s feeling, not why he did it, according to a woman who lives next door, nothing until the trial.
I guess I’m oldfashioned, but these are the kind of journalistic ethics I miss these days.
His solicitor was likely responding directly to a question such as “How is Mr Accused feeling?”
All these mentions of Steve Wright are doing my head in, I keep expecting the Mr Angry and Gervais the Hairdresser to be taken into custody.
“Police believe he was most likely to strike in the afternoon...”
According to Wikipedia he had a character called Mr Perv.
“like you become your job” all over again:
huh? (did I do that?)