The Litvinenko Inquiry

providing that if they were required to attend and give evidence at the public hearing
of the Inquiry, their physical appearance would be concealed from the public, the
media and core participants, but not from me, counsel to the Inquiry, counsel for the
core participants or security cleared Inquiry staff. Further orders were made directing
that their physical appearance need not be concealed from any other person whom I
directed.
86. On 9 October 2015, I made a further restriction order granting anonymity in relation to
a witness known as witness G. By the time of this order, I did not envisage a need to
take any further oral evidence.
Broadcasting
Appendix 1 | The history of the Inquiry and procedures adopted
87. Under existing legislation, broadcasting was not permitted by law of any of the inquest
proceedings. Following the establishment of the Inquiry, broadcasting would be
permitted of such parts of the Inquiry proceedings and to the extent which I considered
appropriate.
88. On 31 July 2014, I permitted broadcast of the formal opening of the Inquiry.
Arrangements were made with one broadcast company for a video feed to be made
available to other broadcasters.
89. On 5 September 2014, I heard submissions about whether I should permit the
broadcast of the Inquiry’s proceedings, particularly the evidence which the Inquiry was
to receive. In addition, I heard submissions about whether the Inquiry’s proceedings
should be streamed live over the Internet.
90. On 7 November 2014, I gave a written provisional ruling inviting further submissions
on certain aspects of the issue of live streaming of the Inquiry’s proceedings over the
Internet.
91. On 14 November 2014, I heard further submissions on that issue. Those submissions
included evidence from the MPS about the responses given by some prospective
witnesses to the idea that their evidence might be broadcast, and the effect that might
have on some witnesses’ willingness to give evidence to the Inquiry.
92. On 26 November 2014, I gave a written ruling giving reasons for my decision not to
permit live streaming of the proceedings of the Inquiry when it took evidence. Different
considerations applied to the opening and closing statements by counsel to the Inquiry
and by core participants’ legal representatives, which I would permit to be broadcast.
Text based communications from the hearing
rooms
93. On 12 September 2014, I published a protocol concerning the use of live text based
communications in the hearing rooms.
94. This provided that, in general, any member of a legal team, or member of the press, or
member of the public was free to use a mobile electronic device in the hearing rooms
to send and receive text based communications whilst the Inquiry was sitting, provided
that the device in question was used in silent mode and there was no disruption to
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