Hold The Presses: Contempt Of Court

The High Court of Justiciary last week published a judgment, originally given in October 2017, finding the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail Ltd guilty of contempt of court for its reporting on the arrests of two (unrelated) individuals. The judgment had not been published at the time, no doubt to avoid adding any further prejudice to the trials in question. Conduct amounts to "contempt of court" in relation to publications (i.e. newspapers, blogs, television programmes etc) if it "creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced." Contempt of court cases involving major publications often attract wider interest and this one is no different.

The case

There were two separate Daily Record articles that gave rise to the petitions by the Lord Advocate, both involving individuals arrested and subject to ongoing court proceedings. In one article, the Record named the accused ("A") and printed photographs of him. It contained details of the allegations...