Freelance journalist Charlie Moloney has made an impassioned rebuttal of the allegation that court reporting “destroys lives” after being abused at a hearing.

Charlie, pictured, has explained why journalists include the details they do in criminal cases and inquests, in a bid to help those involved understand the nature of his work.

It comes after he was dubbed a “rat” for his coverage of a hearing that appeared in a regional title.

Charlie, who also teaches media law at News Associates, explains in his own words for HTFP how he felt upon hearing the jibe.

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“What you wrote in those papers has destroyed my 16-year-old. You’re a rat”.

Those words whispered into the ear of most professionals would be a cause for concern, but for many journalists this is not such an unexpected occurrence, particularly for those of us who report on court cases.

I am not sure I am especially rodent-like, but I recognise the general anger that reporting often causes in those who are written about. Similarly, I recognise the allegation that press coverage destroys the lives of their relatives, particularly children.

It is difficult to know how to respond to this accusation, because it is so non-specific that I cannot be sure which part of the article is in issue. The only response I can offer is a general response to the most common criticisms levelled at the court reporter. It may be a poor answer to the tragedy and raw emotion from which formed the context of those words. It is, however, the best I can do.

Journalists have the right to report from court

There is a sign which reads ‘press’ on a table set up in court. Minds far wiser than our own decided the media should be able to report on court cases. That includes adult criminal courts, youth courts, inquests, employment tribunals and even the sensitive cases heard in the family courts, particularly in recent years.

Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, quoting Jeremy Bentham, said in Scott v Scott [1913] AC 407, 477: “Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion and the surest of all guards against improbity. It keeps the judge himself while trying under trial.”

In Guardian News & Media Ltd v City of Westminster Magistrates Court [2012] EWCA Civ 420, Lord Justice Toulson said: “Open justice. The words express a principle at the heart of our system of justice and vital to the rule of law.

“The rule of law is a fine concept but fine words butter no parsnips. How is the rule of law itself to be policed? It is an age-old question. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes – who will guard the guards themselves?

“In a democracy, where power depends on the consent of the people governed, the answer must lie in the transparency of the legal process. Open justice lets in the light and allows the public to scrutinise the workings of the law, for better or for worse.”

The importance of open justice is such that the establishment of a publicly funded open justice advocate has been suggested. This would, arguably, fill the void left by court reporters, who have traditionally advocated for open justice in courts, but are now in short supply. Until such an advocate is appointed, we remaining journalists still occupy that table in court, for better or worse.

Court reports are not intentionally insensitive

The level of detail included in press reports of traumatic incidents can be distressing for those who are left behind. Clearly the media have a commercial interest in creating stories which are effective and engaging, but there is also a legal risk to publishers who choose to omit details they are entitled to report.

For example, people who appear in criminal courts as defendants can expect to see the first line of their address (the street name) appear in reports of their case. The media has the right to access this information under Rule 5.8(10)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Rules.

In Newstead v London Express Newspaper Ltd [1939] 4 All ER 319, a paper referred to a defendant in a court case as only “Harold Newstead, 30-year-old Camberwell man”. They did not specify where Newstead, on trial for bigamy, was from in Camberwell. Another man named Harold Newstead, aged around 30 and of Camberwell, sued on the basis the report could reasonably be taken to be referring to him.

Sir Wilfrid Greene M.R., hearing the case in the Court of Appeal, said of the newspaper’s defamatory article: “Persons who make statements of this character may not unreasonably be expected, when describing the person of whom they are made, to identify that person so closely as to make it very unlikely that a judge would hold them to be reasonably capable of referring to someone else”.

Therefore, it was the paper’s lack of specificity which exposed it to the risk of a libel action. This is an explanation for why reporting is detailed.

The press are, when reporting suicide, forbidden from excluding “excessive detail” to prevent simulative acts (Clause 5, Editor’s Code, IPSO). However, this restriction explicitly takes “into account the media’s right to report legal proceedings”.

A coroner may decide the deceased died from ‘suicide’ rather than ‘accident’. It is incumbent on the press to explain to readers how the coroner reached that conclusion by including the relevant evidence. During an inquest lasting several weeks, the press will have no way of knowing which evidence the coroner will ultimately decide is relevant, so will report all of it, minus any details which could lead to simulative acts.

Court reports are not deliberately sensationalist

It is often said that court reports are ‘lies’ or ‘false’. What is often apparently meant by this is the media have put a slant or a spin on the truth. Most often, the headline is the lightning rod for criticism. Readers will say it is misleading or ‘clickbait’. They rarely appreciate that anyone who reads the article in its entirety could not come away with a false impression.

In Charleston v News Group Newspapers Ltd [1995] 2 AC 65, Lord Bridge of Harwich said: “The proposition that the prominent headline, or as here the headlines plus’ photographs, may found a claim in libel in isolation from its related text, because some readers only read headlines, is to my mind quite unacceptable.”

Courts assume that readers take the trouble to read beyond headlines and consider the article as a whole. Lord Bridge of Harwich said readers who did not take the trouble to find out what the entire article was about “could hardly be described as ordinary, reasonable, fair-minded readers”.

It is inevitable that there will be a degree of reconstruction in a media report. It is, after all, a piece of work which has a format and fits within a medium. I am sure one’s life is almost unrecognisable when seen condensed into 400 words.

Courts have recognised this editorial latitude. In Ismail v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2012] EWHC 3056 (QB), Mr Justice Eady said of the article he was considering: “The headline was of course intended to be punchy and eye-catching. The basic facts were given a “tabloid tweak”…But I do not regard such a gloss as falling outside the permitted leeway.”

It has clearly been recognised that journalists have a certain amount of freedom to express themselves according to choice. That is also consistent with their right to freedom of expression, enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

One question left unanswered

I can hardly mention the Ismail case without conceding there is a moral dimension to court reporting which the law is silent on. In Ismail, the claimants were asylum seekers whose private lives had been put in the spotlight in xenophobic terms by a national newspaper. Representing themselves in court, they lost the libel case. There was an inequality of arms between them and the publisher they faced, which is not uncommon in media disputes. There is no easy way to slice through the Gordian knot of issues which such disputes entail.

All I can say for sure is court reporters do not relish the prospect of “destroying” anyone. Generally speaking, we believe there is a purpose and social value in the work we do. Hopefully I have at least made it clear that we are not in court as rubbernecks or voyeurs. We are, just like the lawyers, operating as professionals within a complex legal framework where we play a constitutional role, one which is too often disparaged.