Reporting crime: how much can be told before trial?
Journalists have to strike fine balance between telling the story and being fair to the accused
Recent homicides have left journalists wondering how much they can report while police investigate. The public's desire to know is insatiable, and journalists provide valuable context to otherwise inexplicable crimes.
But when should information be held back to avoid contempt of court? The relevant branch of contempt law here involves publication likely to prejudice the fairness of the defendant's trial.
The law is easy to state but challenging to apply. It aims to protect the integrity of the trial by punishing acts likely to impede the court from impartially discharging its fact-finding duties.
During a jury trial for the murder of a five-year-old child, for example, one should not publish a story describing the defendant as a paedophile and as wanting to silence the victim when there was no evidence to that effect adduced at trial. As a rule, while a trial is proceeding, it is dangerous to publish any information that may bear on its outcome and has not been admitted as evidence.
In another case where publication occurred three weeks before the trial of a man charged with the rape of two female tourists, the defendant was described as a "lustful maniac" who had sodomised another prisoner "in a paroxysm of bestial urges". It was a wrongful interference with the administration of justice, and the trial had to be adjourned, causing unnecessary stress to the victims.
Deciding how much to publish shortly after the incident occurs is particularly challenging as it involves a crystal-ball exercise of trying to foresee what might happen at trial.
