Against my better judgment, my
daughter persuaded me to watch a film entitled Little Children the other night. It starred the morose Kate Winslett, bucking for another Oscar and
rapidly turning into the poor man’s Meryl Streep, together with an utterly
forgettable supporting cast.
Basically, it’s a film set in Little
Town America,
where prejudices are as hard as granite, and into their midst is released a
paedophile convicted of indecent exposure towards a minor, so hardly the crime
of the century. LTA is on red alert,
exacerbated by a self styled vigilante, who patrols the streets handing out
leaflets and shouting from the rooftops. The film ends with the paedophile’s mother dying whilst trying to
protect him from this concerted campaign of vilification, and he committing a
gross act of self mutilation in the town park. All very gory and not suitable for family viewing.
I suppose the author’s message
was that the paedophile was never given a chance to integrate into life in LTA,
and was persecuted out of all proportion to his crime and the threat he might
have posed. The oxygen of publicity all
but suffocated him.
Which brings me seamlessly on to
the modest reforms announced by the Ministry of Justice last year, and due to
come into effect on the 27th April. In short, family courts are to be opened to the public, and by that, I
mean the media, as the public, for the most part, are not remotely interested
in watching dirty linen being washed in the full glare of publicity. But the ‘crusaders’ in favour of open courts
have been told that judges will have the right to prevent reporting in certain
cases, and to exclude the public and the media if they deem it necessary in the
interests of justice.
The Times newspaper was at the
forefront of this crusade, giving an inordinate amount of coverage to the views
of one Camilla Cavendish, about whom I know nothing. The received wisdom from The Times
commentators is that these reforms are likely to be still born if judges have
their way, and CC and her camp followers have climbed back into the pulpit.
The Media, by definition, report
the sensational and especially the prurient for mass consumption. If it isn’t sensational, they make it so, as
this sells copies. But the Media are
also slow to correct factual errors, witness their correction columns buried in
the inside pages, where brevity is their watchword. Give a dog a bad name and hang it can so
easily become reality, and where families are concerned, where raw emotions are
never far from the surface, and with children being used as bargaining chips in
bitter disputes between parents, the oxygen of publicity can indeed be
suffocating.
Leave aside the real risk that
with the media present, the truth will be concealed, or at least glossed over,
how can families at war be helped if they are looking over their shoulders all
the time, watching some news hound scribbling away, knowing that their every
word may be reported and distorted?
In these days of global
communications and hot press wires, Darren and Sharon squabbling over Kylie and
Wayne can make for good headlines, especially if there are allegations of
abuse, with all the trimmings. A quiet
day in Fleet Street can turn a routine family case into a multimedia circus and
do untold damage.
Finally, it is worth remembering
that family cases often involve several hearings, especially if custody of the children
is in issue. There will be reports from
Social Services, Court appointed officers, the children will have their own
guardian, possibly paediatricians, psychologists and psychiatrists, to ensure
that no stone is left unturned in the best interests of the children. And the likelihood is that the media will
become bored after the parties’ opening position statements, and so, several
months later when the case concludes, the media will have exhausted their
feeding frenzy and moved on. And what
remains? Graphic headlines pillorying
one party or another will never be corrected, and those pilloried will have to
live with the stigma that was patently untrue and never of their making.
So I applaud the restrictions
placed on open access to family courts. Presumably the media will have the same rights to challenge an exclusion
order or a reporting restriction as they do routinely under the Contempt of
Court Act 1984. It should be all about
fairness. There is no room in the family
courts for sensationalism, and long may it remain.
David Osborne is a successful barrister, voice actor, author, media personality and public performer. In 1991 he hit the headlines nationwide and made legal history when he delivered his final speech to the jury entirely in verse. For this tour de force he was dubbed the Barrister Bard. For more information please visit www.david-osborne.com
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