The Times: Media Must Be Able To Scrutinize Police Arrests
It is vital for the press to be able to report on arrests in order for proper scrutiny of police activities to be maintained, the editorial legal director of Times Newspapers said today.
Writing in The Times, Pia Sarma cited a recent Court of Appeal ruling in a case involving a Bloomberg report on a US businessman under investigation by a UK financial authority. Ms Sarma said that the law was developing in a way that could lead to arrests being hidden from the public gaze.
Bloomberg published details from a letter of request, a form of international mutual legal assistance under the UN Convention against Corruption of 2003. The Court of Appeal confirmed that there is generally an expectation of privacy in criminal investigations until a suspect is charged and decided that Bloomberg’s report broke this law.
Ms Sarma said: “The array of judges’ views on how people understand arrests have been swayed by a swathe of historical sex-abuse allegations and the tired criticism that the police and press are too cosy. It is easy to say that people assume that there is ‘no smoke without fire,’ but that approach is inconsistent with the legal presumption of innocence.
“Lost in all of this is the need to preserve the scrutiny of police wielding the enormous power of arrest, which can be so devastating for people who are wrongly accused. The publicity that follows arrests can be unwelcome, but laws that make any report of an arrest impossible are too one-sided.”
In 2017, The Times successfully defended an attempt by Tariq Khuja, a businessman, to remain anonymous after he had been mentioned in a sex-grooming trial. He had been arrested during a police investigation, but was later released without charge. The Supreme Court upheld the principle of open justice, but there was a split view on whether there is a legal presumption that the public can distinguish between suspicion and guilt.
Ms Sarma said: “The position now needs clarifying. How can courts work on the basis that there is a presumption of innocence, yet be sure that the public cannot understand this? In the background looms the case of Sir Cliff Richard. In 2014 his house was filmed being searched by police in connection with an alleged historical sex offence. A furore over publicity around investigations leapt to the fore. Richard was never arrested or charged.
“In the trial of Richard’s privacy claim against the BBC in 2018 a judge decided for the first time that before the police charge an individual they are entitled to privacy. The Leveson report and the 2016 Henriques report, an investigation into how police had handled allegations of abuse by Carl Beech against politicians, were cited.”