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July 17, 2012 9:12 AM Subscribe
According to this story in the Guardian, a BBC documentary about the London riots has been banned by a judge in England. However, the judgement also forbids revealing the judge's name, place or sitting, or more importantly, reasons for the banning. Can you help me find a leak of the judgement or any additional information, as I would like to know why it has been banned.
I suspect it won't turn up officially for a while, if at all. Be aware that many judgments aren't actually written down, they are delivered verbally. So quite often legal publishers will write summaries of the decision, but won't actually be able to publish the judgment.
Sometimes you'll see redacted judgments published, most often in family law cases, where they don't want to name a child, so they might redact the chilld's name, and then the name of the local authority where they live, maybe even the names of the solicitors. So this one might be published in that form. If it is, your best bet is Bailii, which is free. I just shoulder-tapped a co-worker of mine who works in media law and asked him to send me anything he finds on it, so I'll post here if I hear anything.
posted by Infinite Jest at 1:48 PM on July 17, 2012
Sometimes you'll see redacted judgments published, most often in family law cases, where they don't want to name a child, so they might redact the chilld's name, and then the name of the local authority where they live, maybe even the names of the solicitors. So this one might be published in that form. If it is, your best bet is Bailii, which is free. I just shoulder-tapped a co-worker of mine who works in media law and asked him to send me anything he finds on it, so I'll post here if I hear anything.
posted by Infinite Jest at 1:48 PM on July 17, 2012
Response by poster: Thanks. I appreciate that it could be to do with a pending or current court case, but the tone of the Guardian article suggests that it's something else. Moreso as they could easily say that it will prejudice another case without revealing a great deal of information. It smells fishy.
posted by Jehan at 2:12 PM on July 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Jehan at 2:12 PM on July 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
It was an exceptionally last minute ban, I think it was originally planned to be broadcast at 9 or 10pm and I saw it when I was channel hopping at 7.30pm.
posted by ellieBOA at 12:43 AM on July 18, 2012
posted by ellieBOA at 12:43 AM on July 18, 2012
Sometimes you'll see redacted judgments published, most often in family law cases, where they don't want to name a child, so they might redact the chilld's name, and then the name of the local authority where they live, maybe even the names of the solicitors. So this one might be published in that form.
That seems unlikely if it's a superinjunction - last year when all the fuss was being made about celeb superinjunctions, the details that were released were very sparse, along the lines of '[random three-letter reference] regarding a family matter'. Even when the names of some of the individuals involved became known on Twitter/celeb gossip fora, they were so swiftly deleted to avoid legal trouble that it took some serious Google-fu to find them once they were gone.
posted by mippy at 9:05 AM on July 18, 2012
That seems unlikely if it's a superinjunction - last year when all the fuss was being made about celeb superinjunctions, the details that were released were very sparse, along the lines of '[random three-letter reference] regarding a family matter'. Even when the names of some of the individuals involved became known on Twitter/celeb gossip fora, they were so swiftly deleted to avoid legal trouble that it took some serious Google-fu to find them once they were gone.
posted by mippy at 9:05 AM on July 18, 2012
Best answer: The details of the ban have been revealed. It was a current case, but the judge acted on pretty flimsy grounds.
posted by Jehan at 8:30 AM on July 19, 2012
posted by Jehan at 8:30 AM on July 19, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
The most parsimonious explanation is that one of the rioters is currently scheduled for trial and the judge was concerned that a dramatic recreation of his or her words would negatively affect the outcome.
On the other hand, who knows?
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:22 AM on July 17, 2012