Scottish Human Rights Law Group

Munby J refused an application by the Earl Spencer and his ex-wife to remove the media from court for the whole of the financial settlement battle. It is likely, however, that there will be some reporting restrictions.
The application was decided on 23 June 2009; the judgment has not yet been published.
Rosalind McInnes

The BBC persuaded the House of Lords to lift a reporting restriction anonymising a man controversially acquitted of rape following the inadmissibility of DNA evidence. The BBC wanted to name him as part of a series planned to deal with such acquittals in the context of the abolition of the double jeopardy rule.

A serving police officer who blogged anonymously about his work and his often critical opinions of the administration of justice was refused an injunction which would have protected his identification. He had no expectation of privacy in the information in question.

2-1 split in the Court of Appeal over the taking and retention of photographs by the police of the media coordinator of The Campaign Against Arms Trade – a man with no arrests or convictions – who had been photographed while attending the AGM of a pro-arms trade company.

The Deputy Chairman of the Wirral West Conservative Association sued the Chairman over, inter alia, slander. It was held that “no wonder you have depression, married to an Islamist terrorist” could not be vulgar abuse, but that, since publication was only to the claimant’s wife and daughter, the slander action was struck out as an abuse of process.