The Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, has been at the centre of controversy since he took office in 2010, due to the high number of prosecutions of newspapers for contempt that he has sanctioned.

So when I had the opportunity to meet him (admittedly with 60 other lawyers and law students), I asked him why he was so fervent in prosecuting journalists and publishers.

In particular, I wanted to know why the AG takes such a tough stance on contempt of court, and why he is being so much tougher than any of his immediate predecessors.

With a background firmly entrenched in civil and criminal litigation and not in human rights or media law, Mr Grieve told me that he takes a rather old fashioned approach to notions of what a fair trial process should look like.  To him, this does not involve “trial by newspaper”.

He said that previously, he had no particular interest in prosecuting newspapers, and simply came to the conclusion that action had to be taken because the press no longer seemed to be respecting the constraints imposed by the Contempt of Court Act.

So what, I asked, are the reasons for such high levels of prosecution?

The AG said there are a number of reasons for his aggressive stance.

He began by referring to the rule which allows the prosecution to introduce evidence in Court of a Defendant’s previous bad character and convictions, and said that this has led to newspapers “pushing the envelope” by reporting these matters prior to trial.  They assume, he said, that it would all come out in court in due course – but this is not always the case.

And then he came to the case which every journalist knows about.  Matters, Mr. Grieve said, had come to a head with the case of Christopher Jefferies, the landlord of Joanna Yates who was arrested in connection with the investigation into her murder during the Christmas period in 2010.  The AG said that Mr. Jefferies was vilified in the press “in the most lurid way imaginable” by eight national newspapers, which led to the prosecution and conviction of The Sun and The Daily Mirror, and fines of £18,000 and £50,000 respectively.

The AG believes that a combination of factors has led to the increase in prosecutions, and doesn’t lay blame solely at the door of the press.  He told his audience that he recognises that the press is experiencing a period of severe crisis with falling circulation and increased competition.  He feels that this has led to a certain amount of “dis-inhibition” concerning what is, and what is not, acceptable to publish in relation to active criminal proceedings, due to the struggle to be the first to publish new information.

Unexpectedly, Mr Grieve then expressed the opinion that his interest in contempt has coincided with a “tipping point” for the judiciary, who are becoming increasingly concerned that the fair trial process that underpins our criminal justice system is at risk.  To state the obvious, the system is dependent on jurors coming into court and making decisions based on the evidence presented to them, and not (to use Mr. Grieve’s words) on “tittle tattle” being circulated outside.

This was quite a statement for him to take, because as far as I am aware, no-one has before referred to the judiciary having reached a tipping point when it comes to court reporting and contempt.

Accordingly, Mr. Grieve added, when he was appointed to the post of AG, he began looking at these cases and decided that the current situation was unacceptable.  He felt compelled to prosecute the newspapers he considered to have crossed the line, though he recognised the risk that such prosecutions would not be universally successful.

And this was his second revelation: Mr. Grieve is willing to prosecute publishers even if there is a risk of no conviction at the end of the process.

Recently The Times was prosecuted for reporting details of a previous murder conviction of the then alleged murderer of Nicole Edgington. The High Court held that The Times had not committed an offence under the Contempt of Court Act.  The AG said that although he had not been successful in this particular prosecution, he felt that the comments made by the Judges in the case were so damning of the behaviour of the Times that he considered it to be a moral, if not an actual, victory.

Importantly, Mr. Grieve said that he derives no pleasure from prosecuting newspapers.  He prefers trying to avoid prosecutions where possible, and wants to “have a dialog with newspaper editors”.  This is what he will be endeavouring to do going forward, he said in conclusion.

It goes without saying that dialogue is better than being prosecuted.  But at the same time, the press, and particularly the regional and local press, has to take heed of Mr. Grieve’s willingness to use the criminal justice system to send his message to the press at large.

If we didn’t know already, we have been warned…