A Court of Appeal judge would dismiss an appeal against contempt convictions arising from newspaper and online coverage of a person facing criminal charges, finding that the publication created a real risk to the fairness of the pending trial.
The judgment by Mr Justice John Edwards was delivered on 21 December 2017. It is a redacted version of a full judgment delivered on 20 January 2017. The court said only the redacted judgment may be reported until further order, which is to follow the conclusion of the criminal trials concerned.
The appeal concerned a High Court decision of 24 April 2015. O’Malley J found Independent News and Media plc, Stephen Rae and Internet Interactions Limited guilty of contempt over material published after the unnamed individual had been charged. Claire Grady was also named as an appellant, but was not among those found guilty. The High Court had ruled that the publication was calculated to create a real risk of an unfair trial and had issued an injunction restraining further publication of material calculated to interfere with specified criminal trial processes.
Edwards J said the charges against the individual included conspiracy to defraud and making gain or causing loss by deception. He considered that the coverage associated the individual with dishonesty, concealment and deceit, and could affect how jurors assessed allegations requiring them to decide whether conduct was dishonest. He rejected the appellants’ submissions that the material did not concern the charged conduct, that jury directions could prevent prejudice, or that other similar publications made the risk unreal. He noted that those other publications had appeared before the individual was charged.
The judgment stressed that contempt did not require proof that a trial was actually disrupted. It was enough, in Edwards J’s view, that publication tended to create a real, rather than remote or fanciful, risk of an unfair trial. He also said interference with freedom of expression had to be proportionate and limited to what was needed to protect a fair trial.
The appeal was heard by Finlay Geoghegan, Hogan and Edwards JJ. Edwards J expressly dissented from Hogan J’s view that the publication posed no real risk to trial fairness. His conclusion was that the appeal against conviction should be dismissed. He did not decide the appeals against sentence or the injunction in this judgment, and expressed no final view on the injunction’s scope.
The High Court had imposed fines of €50,000 each on Independent News and Media plc and Internet Interactions Limited, and a €200 fine on Stephen Rae, with custodial terms in default. Those sentence appeals remained for further consideration.