‘This is not Justice’: Ian Tomlinson, Institutional Failure and the Press Politics of Outrage

A recent paper by Chris Greer and Eugene McLaughlin, from the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism, in the British Journal of Criminology contributes to research on the sociology of scandal and the role of national newspapers and, more particularly, newspaper editorials in setting the agenda for public debate around police accountability and miscarriages of justice.

In previous work, we analysed how citizen journalism framed news coverage of the policing of the G20 Summit, London 2009, and the death of Ian Tomlinson (Greer and McLaughlin 2010). In this article, we consider the next stage of the Ian Tomlinson case. Our empirical focus is the controversy surrounding the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decision not to prosecute the police officer filmed striking Tomlinson shortly before he collapsed and died. We illustrate how the press’s relentless agenda-setting around ‘institutional failure’, initially targeted at the Metropolitan Police Service, expanded to implicate a network of criminal justice institutions. The Tomlinson case offers insights into the shifting nature of contemporary relations between the British press and institutional power. It is a paradigmatic example of a politically ambitious form of ‘attack journalism’, the scope of which extends beyond the criminal justice system. In a volatile information-communications marketplace, journalistic distrust of institutional power is generating a ‘press politics of outrage’, characterized by ‘scandal amplification’.

The paper can be accessed via this link. [Br J Criminol (2011) doi: 10.1093/bjc/azr086, First published online: November 17, 2011].

Registration open for ‘Justice Wide Open’ event on legal knowledge in a digital era

The Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism will be hosting ‘Justice Wide Open’ on Wednesday 29 February 2012 at City University London from 9am-2pm. It’s free to attend but registration is required.

Geoffrey Robertson QC will open the event with a talk on ‘Alphabet Soup and the judicial retreat from open justice’. Three sessions will cover the history and context of the flow of legal knowledge; legal reporting and the media; and an academic perspective on open justice.

Speakers include: Hugh Tomlinson QC, Matrix Chambers; Dr David Goldberg, information rights academic and activist; Emily Allbon, law librarian, City Law School; Heather Brooke, journalist and activist; Mike Dodd, editor of PA Media Lawyer; Adam Wagner, barrister, One Crown Office Row and editor of the UK Human Rights Blog; William Perrin, founder, Talk About Local and member of the Crime and Justice Sector Panel on Transparency; Professor Ian Cram, Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law, University of Leeds; Dr Lawrence McNamara, Reader in Law and ESRC/AHRC Research Fellow, University of Reading.

R v Peacock: landmark trial redefines obscenity law

We can celebrate for the outcome in R v Peacock, argues Alex Antoniou, but obscenity law is not dead; at least, not yet

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 (OPA or the 1959 Act henceforth), passed over half a century ago, was quite recently wielded against Michael Peacock, a male escort professionally known as ‘sleazy Michael’, who had been accused of distributing obscene DVDs for gain. His determination to challenge this ‘arcane and archaic legislation’ was vindicated on 6 January 2012 when a unanimous jury in a landmark obscenity trial at Southwark Crown Court returned a not guilty verdict.

The facts

The defendant in R v Peacock was charged on indictment with six counts under the 1959 Act for distributing allegedly obscene DVDs. The recordings at issue had been advertised for sale on the Internet and Craigslist. Mr Peacock had been selling them from his flat in Brixton. Officers from SCD9, the Metropolitan Police unit investigating human exploitation and organised crime (the former Obscene Publications Squad of the Met), came across Mr Peacock’s services and operated an undercover test purchase in January 2009. Six DVDs were deemed obscene and Mr Peacock was prosecuted.

The Ian Tomlinson inquest was justice seen to be done

By Chris Greer and Eugene McLaughlin

This article first appeared on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site.

The inquest into Ian Tomlinson’s death has concluded that he was unlawfully killed by a police officer at the G20 demonstrations in April 2009. Reported daily via live blogs, this was the first inquest made accessible in real time to millions of virtual onlookers. The Tomlinson inquest is a landmark development in the live coverage of justice.

One of the most noticeable characteristics of the G20 protests was the sheer density and variety of recording devices. Police “kettling” tactics allowed no distinction between journalists, demonstrators and passersby. As a result, police-media-protester-public interactions took place in tight spatial proximity, simultaneously creating a captive audience to surrounding events. In this kind of context, control of the information and communication environment was impossible.

At first, the police strenuously denied any involvement with Tomlinson prior to his collapse. Witness statements immediately contested the police position. But it was the video footage shot by Chris La Jaunie and passed to the Guardian that proved Tomlinson had been struck and pushed to the ground by a police officer. Were it not for this visual evidence, the Metropolitan police service (MPS) would have successfully denied and defused allegations of police violence: the policing of G20 could have ended up in its “Greatest Hits” portfolio of how to police public order events in the capital. Because of the visual evidence, the institutional authority of the police was questioned, and then successfully challenged.

Public funding for the representation of next of kin at inquests and open justice

By Sam McIntosh

In the recent case of R (Humberstone) v Legal Services Commission (the Lord Chancellor intervening) ( [2010] All ER (D) 255 (Dec), [2010] EWCA Civ 1479), the Court of Appeal held that the Legal Services Commission (LSC) was wrong to deny a mother public funding for legal representation at the inquest into the death of her son, Dante Kamara, who had died of an asthma attack aged 10 years.

The case is important because legal representation for next of kin at inquests into deaths for which the state may bear some responsibility can be a vital safeguard against them becoming incestuous dialogues amongst members of the establishment, where the next of kin’s (and the public’s) concerns are given short shrift.  For this and other reasons, the effective participation of the next of kin in an inquest has important implications for open justice and democratic accountability.

The judgment clears up a recurring ambiguity in previous case law concerning deaths which engage article 2 (the right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).  The judgment also criticises the presumption made by previous case law, and official guidance, that the next of kin’s right to publicly funded legal representation at article 2 compliant inquests will only arise in exceptional circumstances. Finally, the case demonstrates a rather concerning attitude on the part of the LSC when exercising its discretion: an attitude which may become increasingly entrenched in the current atmosphere of cuts to public funding.

Welcome to the Centre’s new blog

Welcome to the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism’s new blog, for discussion and debate around the CLJJ’s activities, events and research at City University London.

The Centre, which launched in March 2010, brings together the disciplines of Law, Justice and Journalism through research and teaching.

More here!

Pic: Royal Courts of Justice. It was taken and published by Flickr user vegem8383 and is used here in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Licence.