Jo Yeates’s landlord Chris Jefferies: harsh justice from the tabloids
Now it is happening again with the murder just before Christmas of the Bristol landscape architect Joanna Yeates, and the arrest (and subsequent release without charge) of Chris Jefferies, the improbably blue-haired ex-public school teacher who was Miss Yeates's landlord.
One tabloid yesterday quoted Jefferies as saying that he will now fight to 'clear his name' - yet the 65-year-old has been found guilty of nothing.
It might surprise those tabloid readers who have been lapping up the story over the Christmas holiday that there is a law that forbids much of the coverage with which they have been titillated. It is called the Contempt of Court Act.
Once police action against a suspect has been started, it outlaws publication of anything beyond the basic details of an arrest. It is designed to ensure a fair trial if and when the suspect is charged and comes to court.
Judging by much of the press coverage and online comment, the Act is now ignored by many journalists, and probably not known at all by the many bloggers and Facebook enthusiasts who are also 'publishing' when they air their views and prejudices.
One reason why newspapers are allowed such rope is that stories like this now take wings far beyond the control of Fleet Street editors or broadcasting chiefs. We live in the age of the 'citizen journalist' to whom libel and contempt are as unknown as Latin and Greek grammar.
Under the Contempt of Court Act 1981, it is criminal contempt of court to publish anything which creates a risk that the course of justice in proceedings may be seriously impaired. It applies where proceedings are active. The clause prevents the newspapers and media from publishing material that is too extreme or sensationalist about a criminal case until the trial is over and the jury has given its verdict.
Once upon a time newspaper lawyers forbade reporting that might infringe this law. Editors did, occasionally, stand in the dock facing possible imprisonment for contempt. Now, one suspects, some lawyers advise not what papers ought to do, but what they feel the journalists may get away with.
And, judging by the last few days, what they can get away with is a great deal of prejudicial, damning coverage.
Every possible detail of Chris Jefferies's life has been picked over by the tabloids, complete with reminiscences from former teachers and pupils at Clifton College, where he taught
Typical was this headline in the Daily Mail last Friday: "We thought 'nutty professor' was gay, say ex-pupils". That was published just 24 hours before Jefferies was released after questioning by the police without charge. Little wonder he has chosen not to return to his Clifton home and that his friends are talking of a fight to clear his name.
Dominic Grieve, the attorney-general, sought last week to fire a warning shot across the bows of the speculators and rumour-mongers in the Yeates case. However, he appears to underestimate the dangers of contempt online.
This morning's newspapers, as we all know, are tonight's fish 'n' chip wrappings. But blogs and social network sites - and, of course, the online versions of the newspapers - remain permanently in cyberspace. More than one in 10 jurors admitted last year that they went online to research the cases they were supposed to be judging with unprejudiced minds, and a further 25 per cent admitted coming across online reports during trials.
Although 'Your Guide to Jury Service' does not even mention the internet, the lord chief justice, Lord Judge, is concerned about possible contamination of trials. He has told judges to warn jurors that researching online is contempt. Other jurors, if they know about it, should report such activity to court officials - though it would be hard for them to get damning pre-trial anecdotes or facts out of their minds.
Our contempt laws are vital to the administration of justice. In the US, where the media play fast and loose with pre-trial speculation, it is sometimes virtually impossible to empanel an unbiased jury. I once sat through the jury selection for a high profile trial. Questioning revealed, naturally, that anyone with half a brain had views. The eventual jury comprised the 12 most ignorant of the assembled citizens.
By contrast to our increasingly lax contempt laws, it is ironic that England and Wales have the most draconian libel laws in the western world, which bring wealthy foreign litigants flocking to London to pursue (often successfully) overseas publications that sell a few copies here.
The American gossip site TMZ.com which covers the latest antics of Tiger Woods, Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson and co voluntarily withdrew its UK service over the weekend, apparently concerned about its legal vulnerability.
Yet when it comes to men like Jefferies and Stagg and George, the British libel laws appear inaccessible. Pursuing damages for defamation against the well-lawyered and well-heeled media has always been a game that can be played only by the rich.
