Last night’s Media Law and Court Reporting began with a list of crimes and sentencing options, moved into a general introduction to criminal courts and procedure and ended up with statistics on dog fouling. And to my delight the class meant I could make use of the shorthand outlines we have learned for ‘crime’, ‘criminals’, ‘members of the jury’, ‘guilty’, ‘police’ and ‘arrest’.
There are an awful lot of crimes against the person and against property!
While none of the terms were brand new, there were a lot I would not have been able to define, such as assault and battery. It turns out you can assault someone without actually touching them – assault is a hostile act that causes another to fear an attack.
There were a number of important distinctions between terms I had heretofore used interchangeably that now, doing so as a journalist, could land me in hot water. It is all about the degrees of crimes. I must not mistakenly accuse someone of a more serious crime. Theft is dishonestly taking something that belongs to someone else with the intention to permanently deprive. Whereas robbery is the more serious crime of theft by force. Getting it wrong could lead to a being sued for defamation – untrue statements that could damage the person’s reputation.
We also learned a case is ‘active’ from arrest until sentencing. This is the period during which we must not report to avoid liability for contempt of court by prejudicing (ooh we know the shorthand special outline for that too!) the outcome of the case.
After the tea break we discussed sentencing options.
I now know the difference between consecutive and concurrent jail sentences and conditional and absolute discharges – all very useful if we were planning some crime.
We discussed the Thirsk rail crash of 1892, a popular example of the rare occurrence of absolute discharge – when although the defendant is convicted of a crime no penalty is imposed and the defendant is deemed to be morally blameless.
Although it is only week two I am already enjoying it and finding this course particularly interesting and relevant.
- It brings together experiences I have had – my limited experience on jury service until both cases were thrown out, and at the other end of the spectrum, receiving a notice of intended prosecution after I drove at 35mph in a 30mph zone on Christmas Eve. (Maybe subconsciously I wanted to actively prepare for my up-and-coming law module).
- Also one of my best friends is a police officer which means over the years I have learned about her role – sometimes too much. I’ll never forget the drive home with the car full of her fellow officers talking shop after watching ‘Monster’ where Charlize Theron played a prostitute executed for murdering six men after she was brutally raped. Not something to be repeated.
- Learning the legal vocabulary is already enabling me to make more sense of the crime and court cases that are reported in the media on a daily basis.
And then we came to Freedom of Information requests and how to use them to get a story – again very interesting.
We discussed stories which came as a result of FOIs – the serious, such as the MPs expenses scandal, the frivalous Daily Mail stories on on teenage tearaways statistics and wonky willies and the quirky ‘never stories’ – occurrences of things that are supposed to never happen, like surgical instruments being left inside the patient.
We mentioned RIPA and the furore over the police use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to access journalists’ phone records to discover journalistic sources. http://bit.ly/1sw09u4
“The principle has to be a) freedom of expression, b) journalists have a job to do and there is a public interest defence available to all journalists. so you would be able to argue that case”, Simon Hughes, Justice Minister.
We discussed how FOI requests often begin as the question, ‘I wonder how many..?’ or ‘I wonder if..?’often prompted by your own experience – something you have seen or a form you have filled in.
We had a dig around in http://www.whatdotheyknow.com for ideas and I revisited my first FOI request.
I made my request in November 2014 when my district council launched a new initiative aimed at reducing dog fouling by spraying the mess with illuminous paint.
Dog mess is something of a problem in my neighbourhood and always rates highly for residents in policing priorities surveys.
I wanted to know just how effective this scheme was proving and how much it cost.
The response I received had been late (it should be within 20 days), incomplete and a little baffling in places but one interesting fact was that in the three year period covered they had made one successful prosecution. The mind boggled – quite just how bad were the circumstances of this particular case been that they had been able to secure a conviction?
Emma Clothier 