The Edi ' - The Leveson Inquiry

For Distribution to CPs
Lessens from the past: Only one complaint had been upheid
under the previous rules -- revised in the wake of the Rosemary
West trial in ? 996 -- and that was an nadvertent breach relating to
the case of Gary Glitter.
An ambiguity in the contract in 1997 between the News of the
World and a woman who had previously claimed to have been an
underage partner of the pop stager apoearad to suggest the
payment was conditional on the outcome of the trial, In fact, at me
time of the contract, the woman was neither a witness nor potentmt
witness in the case. ~7~vio~, ~ #~’÷~o]s :;f ~ne Wb ]d POC Re~:n 4&
The PCC launched an investigation into the case of Amy Gehring.
e former teacher accused of intimate liaisons with pupils in 2002, It
found that although payments had been made to former pupils, s"
M~rro~ Pe~d ~ 2P>,O~
notification to the prosecution for onward transmission to the
However, the PCC has indicated that e newspaper’s paymeht to
dstenca.
an informant who was e potential witness in the case of an alleged
There has been only one adjudication since the new rutes were
plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham, which had not breached the Code
ntreducad, and it underlined the importance of timing of
in 2002. would probably have been a breach under the new rules.
approaches A prosecution witness in the thal of Kate Knight--who
was later jailed for 30 years for attempting to murder her husband by
lacing his food with anti-freeze told the court that during an
overnight break in her testimony she had been approached by a
Under the rules introduced in 2003:
magazine offering a fee for an interview, once the thai was over
Although she had received other requests for an interview this was
Relevant earlier rulings:
the only one that mentioned a fee.
The PCC launched its own investigation -- as it often does with
’victimless’ cases and although there had been no =mpact on the
trla censured the magazine for Its premature approach. The
Commission saEe it was never acoeptab+e for witnesses to be
approache~ with offers of payment while giving evidence. PCG
The Code, from its mcaption in 1991, nas taken e tough tree or
~payments to criminals, with a blanket ban on deals unless they
could be justified in the public interest. While that appreecn reflected
public concerns over criminals being seen to profit from their acfions,
or glamonsmg or glorifying crime, the Code has never assumed all
sucn payments to be inherently undesirable.
PCC rulings had made clear that a lifetime ban would be unfair on
reformed criminals or those WhOSe convictions were spent. It was
also a potantiat wotation of their human rights.
n 2003, the PCC produced guidance on the sort of cases most
likely to breach the rule on payments to criminals -- and those wnlcn
generally would not,
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Least likely offenders included:
Book serialisations, which were anyway m the public domain
Cases wnere no direct payment was made to a criminal or
associate -- i.e. when a payment was made to a chanty to secure
the material
Payments where publication was in the public interest;
Articles which made significant new information available to the
public.
~est Iikel~ offender~ included:
Articles glorifying crime -- no complaint about an article that did
so had ever been rejected;
Payment for kiss-and-tail stories about romarca or sex;
+~ Payments for irrelevant gossip, which intrudes on the privacy of
others.
The Code Committee reflected these realities by introducing m
June 2004 an additional defenca, permitting payment to a criminal
without the necessity for it to be in the public interest -- but only if
the material published did not seek to exploit a particular crime, or
glorify or glamorlse crime in general.
Exploitation and gtam~risi++# crime: The burden would be on the
editer to prove that there was genuinely no intentional exploitation of
a particular crime or of glamorising or glorifying crime generally, and
demonstrate that it was net reasonable to expect that to be the
OUtCOme.
: ’ ( TF C ( ’~W edft~raco~e or~ ~+(
The panel
COlOUr cooe
~Whatthe
Code sa~
t~ey
euestlons
eatorsneee
:o ask
mernselves
when Code
issues arise
Briefings
o~ specific
areas where
theCode
applies
38
MOD100036613