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Newspaper courts round-up wiped from Google

A regional daily’s round-up of recent court cases from 2011 has become the latest casualty of the controversial ‘right to be forgotten” ruling.

Google has removed from its search listings a 2011 Oxford Mail round-up of Oxford Magistrates Court caees published as part of a regular column entitled ‘Scale of Justice.’

The report listed 20 convictions which will now no longer in search listings.

In response to the move, which follows a European Court of Justice ruling earlier this year, the Mail has republished the entire list as part of a new story.

The Mail said:  “Open justice is a cornerstone of the British justice system and the Oxford Mail believes the public has a right to know who has been convicted of crimes.

“It has re-published the entire Scales of Justice list with its version of this article below to ensure the public’s right to know is not thwarted by the European Court ruling.”

Google will not reveal who has made the request but it is believed it is likely to be only one person in the article.

However, because that Scales of Justice article covered 20 cases it means searches of for any of the score of names will not reveal they were convicted.

The Mail has been in the forefront of the campaign to highlight potential abuse of the so-called right to be forgotten by convicted criminals.

It has ensured attempts to use the ruling in this way have backfired by republishing stories that then receive thousands more page views than the originals.

Earlier this year Dr Robert Daniels-Dwyer succeeded in having a story about a conviction for shoplifting in Oxford removed from search results.

He later complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the Mail’s coverage of the case along with that of HoldtheFrontPage, but his complaint was rejected.

5 comments

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  • September 22, 2014 at 10:00 pm
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    Where does rehabilitation of offenders act come into this?
    I will wonder too about those hopelessly unbalanced court briefs that don’t even say someone denied offence or gived no mitigation. This is neither a fair nor balanced court report.

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  • September 23, 2014 at 8:31 am
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    So you are saying all court lists should have the full details of the case including mitigation?

    Have you worked on a paper before Exhack? Your lack of understanding of court lists and use of the word ‘gived’ suggests otherwise.

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  • September 23, 2014 at 1:41 pm
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    Let’s be clear on this; however short a court nib is, it should include the defendant’s name, age, address, occupation (where available) charge and plea (if given). If should also include an outline of the defence if there has been one. And while on this topic, since when did “defence” suddenly become the rather pompous “mitigating”?

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  • September 23, 2014 at 3:46 pm
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    How long before the attention is turned to the British Newspaper Archive? Will the march continue towards bound volumes or microfiches held in newspaper offices or public libraries? All can be accessed for public scrutiny.

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  • September 23, 2014 at 6:59 pm
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    I probably covered more court cases than you have had hot dinners desker.
    So I know just how unfair lists of court results are. Nice easy copy for people sitting on their backsides though.

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