Further Arguments on Cameras in Courts

Last week history was made with the first television broadcast from the Court of Appeal. The next step, the Government says, is the broadcasting of remarks made by judges during the sentencing of convicted offenders. However, trials will not be broadcast. Meanwhile television companies ultimately seek to broadcast trials, and some senior members of the judiciary foresee that as the end result.

So is the broadcast of full trials desirable? I firmly believe it is not and shall seek to persuade you why.

An Argument Against Broadcasting Trials

It is almost inevitable that the broadcasting of trials would lead to short snippets of edited footage appearing on news programmes. This editing of raw footage into newsworthy sound bites is the first concerning prospect televised trials present. Edited material is peculiarly dangerous since it does not present the whole picture and, in its worst form, can positively misrepresent a situation. I recall an excellent example of this danger which, as it happens, concerned the print media, who has long been welcome along with the rest of the public to attend trials for the purposes of reporting. This particular case concerned serious allegations against a professional male of grooming a 15 year old male teenager. Although the defendant was not charged with the offence, rape was also alleged. A local newspaper reporter attended and listened to the entirety of the complainant’s evidence. Like much unchallenged evidence it sounded convincing. At the conclusion of the complainant’s evidence the reporter left and did not subsequently return. She missed one of the best displays of cross-examination I have ever seen, which exposed the teenager’s evidence as grossly inconsistent at best. Sure enough however, the newspaper’s report covered the salacious detail of the allegations yet failed entirely to report on the systematic explosion of the complainant’s evidence. Instead, a short article later appeared that said the defendant had been cleared. Overall, the reporting was inaccurate and highly damaging to a demonstrably innocent man. The inalienable stigma of being accused of a sexual offence was not countered at all by accurate reporting. Instead, I suggest it was exacerbated by incomplete reporting. I am not for a moment suggesting that was the reporter’s intention, but it was the inevitable consequence of ‘edited’ reporting, reporting that did not present the full picture but instead presented an incomplete one.

Complex fact scenarios do not lend themselves to being edited into a short segment. When they are reduced to this, a misleading picture is almost certain to follow. This is extremely dangerous. Returning to the unfortunate defendant I mentioned above, had that trial been edited into a news segment it might very well have misled in exactly the same way as the newspaper report. Now however, instead of a local readership gaining an inaccurate impression the whole nation can gain one. The defendant would be indelibly marked in the national consciousness with the stigma of having been accused of a sexual offence. To my mind that is not justice, that is rank injustice.

We are of course familiar with edited material. We are often subjected to recordings of Parliament than have been edited. Shortened edited portions present one picture, while anyone who watched the proceedings in full on BBC Parliament has often seen another. The distortion that edited material creates is intensified by the on-demand media consumption culture we now live in. We do not receive this edited information on sporadic news broadcasts. Instead news is broadcast all day, every day, and modern technology allows us to consume news on the move. Edited, inaccurate material has the ability to be all pervasive and it is positively dangerous. So if it is the editing of material that is problematic can we not safely broadcast uninterrupted trials? This requires a more general examination of the arguments against broadcasting trials.

Firstly, it takes a great deal of courage for the victims and witnesses of crime to attend court and give evidence. It is often difficult to secure their attendance; most people understandably fear giving evidence. It seems to me to be highly probable that broadcasting proceedings would make it even more difficult to secure the attendance of victims and witnesses (although I do not have statistical evidence to support this). Victims and witnesses are often required to recall extremely disturbing events in their life, events which they rarely wish to recall; especially to the unknown individuals they face in a courtroom. Requiring them to recall events in the knowledge that they are being broadcast nationally is, I suggest, likely to deter victims and witnesses from coming forward so that they can avoid that level of publicity. You might respond that everything a witness says can be reported in the print press, so does television broadcasting make a difference. I argue that it does: reading words is not the same as seeing the actual individual presenting the evidence in their own voice. Words are dissociated from the person, but audio images are not; the spotlight is squarely on an identifiable and vulnerable individual. Even if the individual were not shown on screen their voice identifies them far more than reading their spoken words in a newspaper. Perhaps the only way to avoid this is to obscure witnesses’ voices too. So far as I know, this has not been suggested as a realistic or desirable option.

In my view, it is far more important that we secure justice (through a trial) by ensuring victims and witnesses are not deterred from giving evidence, rather than televising trials in the pursuit of open justice. After all, if justice is thwarted by victims and witnesses being deterred from giving evidence then what we are televising could hardly be described as justice. It would be a façade of justice while many crimes fail to reach trial where a just outcome can be secured. You might respond: ‘How do we know we have secured justice if we cannot see it? Is it not a vital principle that justice must not only be done but be seen to be done?’ Yes it is. But justice can be seen and can be checked; it is just limited to those in attendance at the court. I suggest that the number of people that a witness anticipates might see them giving evidence affects their willingness to give evidence. If that is the case, it is better that we secure justice and limit the number of people directly observing the witness giving evidence, rather than televising all proceedings in the pursuit of open justice.

A second argument against broadcasting trials appears to be that television companies are interested only because of the potential for salacious content, not to ensure that the course of justice is openly broadcast in its entirety. I am prepared to be corrected on that point, but I have not seen any television companies offering to fund the broadcast of complete trials to ensure they are not misleading. What instead appears to be desired is newsworthy snippets of sensational material. This leads us back to the dangers of edited material.

Meanwhile we must ask what broadcasting trials would achieve? Likely positive outcomes include a better understanding of the court system and perhaps greater for respect for it and its participants. But this is nothing that we cannot already achieve. Simply attending a court can result in these outcomes. You might respond that this is not practical for many people as they work or have other commitments. My response is simply that there is no established lobby by members of the public demanding the broadcasting of trials. The public appears to be perfectly content to read court news. Moreover, these outcomes do not outweigh the risk to justice identified above: there is little point televising trials if it is likely to damage justice.

Conclusion

The issue of televised trials is not simply matter of improving open justice. The aim of the justice system is to ensure just outcomes. Televised trials pose a risk to justhat is not outweighed by the benefits of open justice. We should not therefore allow justice to be compromised by televised trials.

What are your thoughts?