The Attorney General has confirmed that contempt of court
proceedings have been begun against a number of individuals who posted
photographs online said to be current images of one of the killers of James
Bulger.
There is an injunction (court order) in force which bans
anyone from publishing anything which identifies the killers, Jon Venables or
Robert Thompson, or which might lead to their identification.
Venables and Thompson were 10 years old when, in 1993, they
abducted James Bulger, aged two, and savagely attacked and murdered him. They
were released from prison in 2001 and given secret new identities and
addresses.
The Attorney General’s Office has said that those breaching
the injunction risk a fine or imprisonment. It explained that the terms of the
order mean that if a picture claims to be of Venables or Thompson, even if it
is not actually them, then the order is breached. It added that there are many
images on the internet claiming to be Venables or Thompson which could
potentially lead to innocent individuals being incorrectly identified as one of
the killers and thereby placed in danger. The Attorney General’s Office
therefore says that the order protects not only Venables and Thompson but also
those who have been incorrectly identified as one of them.
The Injunction
So why exactly are the identities of Venables and Thompson
protected? In 2001, before they were released from prison, they brought legal
proceedings against three news groups arguing that the reporting restrictions which
had been ordered after their trial in 1993 should be continued indefinitely. The
news groups had argued, essentially, that the right to freedom of expression meant
that details about the killers should be permitted to be published.
The High Court agreed that freedom of expression was
important but said that it could be restricted if it was ‘in accordance with
the law’ and a ‘proportionate’ response to a ‘pressing social need’ (as set out
in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which deals with
freedom of expression). The Court held that the killers’ new identities and
personal information were confidential and that there was a very real possibility
that they would be physically harmed or killed if their new identities became
known. It also held, following cases from the European Court of Human Rights,
that there is a duty to protect an individual’s right to life where there is a
known risk to it. The Court therefore held that it was proportionate to
restrict free speech and granted an injunction indefinitely against the whole
world preventing the publication of information about the killers’ identities.
The judgment that originally ordered the injunction can be
read here: http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2001/32.html&query=venables+and+v+and+news+and+group&method=boolean
The injunction itself can be read here: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/venables-order-butler-sloss-july2010.pdf
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