R2OK!

mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

The BBC has been criticised for broadcasting an interview with a man arrested in connection with the murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich.

Media lawyers have said the broadcast yesterday of a radio interview with Tom Stephens could be prejudicial if the case ever went to trial.

Meanwhile, Mr Stephens' MySpace page - from which details and pictures have been widely used by the media - has been taken down.

A note on the page said: "This user has either cancelled their membership or their account has been deleted."

Police have been given until later today to question Mr Stephens, while the Suffolk force also confirmed this morning that they had arrested another suspect in connection with the case. Police have said their inquiries are ongoing.

The BBC's decision to broadcast the interview with Mr Stephens - undertaken for "background purposes" early last week by radio reporter Trudi Barber - was criticised by Christopher Sallon QC, who said he felt it was "absolutely wrong" on the grounds that "it is contrary to the Contempt of Court Act" and "contrary to the spirit" of that legislation.

"It [the broadcast] can only encourage speculation and in my view, having seen the interview, prejudice the trial," he told last night's Newsnight.

Defence lawyer Julian Young added that such reporting "can be prejudicial" as the court may decide "there can't be a fair trial".

"The ultimate public interest must be a fair trial," he told the BBC2 programme.

The BBC news deputy director, Adrian van Klaveren, defended the broadcast, saying he considered it to be "in the public interest" and that it was "not the case" that it "could be prejudicing any potential legal action".

However, he added there had been discussion about releasing the interview as it had been conducted for "background purposes" with Mr Stephens specifically asking for it not to be broadcast.

"We then had to think about the ethical issues around actually deciding to release a conversation which had been done on a different basis," Mr van Klaveren said.

"We felt in these very extraordinary and very rare circumstances there was actually a justification for doing that."

Mr Stephens also undertook an interview with the Sunday Mirror in which he protested his innocence and said he feared he would be arrested.

Source Media Guardian.

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So the bloody should be, but if the man is Innocent then there is nothing to worry about. I still think these sort of cases or really any case should be dealt with by the Police not the media.

Cherskiy · Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 5:51 pm Post subject:

I can never understand why the BBC (and other news organisations) need to always cut to reporters standing in front of places (i.e. 10 Dowining Street, hospitals, police stations and courts to get an update along the lines of 'er, well, there's nothing happening at the moment but we expect news shortly' or '[insert name here] is expected to....'. A complete waste of money. News is something that's happened - anything else is pure speculation. By all means go to reporters on the spot when something happens, otherwise, don't bother....

I mean, there was some poor frozen girl standing outside Suffolk Police HQ at 0630 this morning, duly giving an update on what was happening (or not, as it happened) in the 'Suffolk Strangler' case. She had no new news to impart, no-one to interview, no point really. Dermot in the studio could have easily read out what she was saying, which wasn't much. A waste of time and licence-payers' money....

Right, that's the rant over for tonight....

Cherskiy

Cherskiy
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Ella Sailyour · Joined: 11 Dec 2006 Posts: 579 Location: Marbella, Spain