After Cliff Richard’s victory, the BBC must fight back to preserve justice…and a free press
PRESS freedom suffered a terrible blow this week. And so did justice.
On Wednesday, at the High Court in London, a judge ruled in favour of Sir Cliff Richard in his privacy case against the BBC.
He said the Beeb’s reporting of a police raid on Sir Cliff’s home in 2014 — part of an investigation into historical allegations of sexual abuse — was a “serious invasion” of the singer’s privacy.
But here’s the thing, the really worrying thing: Alongside slamming the corporation for its “sensationalist” coverage, the judge also reprimanded it for naming Sir Cliff.
He told it off simply for reporting that the singer was under investigation.
For reporting a fact, and a fact that will have been of great interest to the public: That one of our best-known national treasures was being looked into by the cops.
In the words of the BBC’s director of news Fran Unsworth, looking shaken outside the court, “The judge has ruled that the very naming of Sir Cliff was unlawful.”
This sets a really dangerous precedent.
It threatens the free media and the pursuit of justice itself.
Because if the press cannot name individuals in the early stages of a police investigation, it cannot do its job properly.
It cannot keep the public up to speed on such crucial matters as police suspicion and potential crime.
Worse, if the media is gagged from naming a suspect prior to them being charged, this will make it impossible for other potential victims to come forward.
Like the rest of us, these people will be in the dark about what is going on, about who is being investigated, which means they won’t be able to stand up and say: “I have a story about this person too . . . ”
Justice will be ill-served, it will be devastated in fact, by this shielding of suspects from open media discussion.
Even a former BBC chairman said last night the corporation would be crazy to appeal against the court’s ruling.
Lord Patten believes the BBC breached the singer’s privacy when they covered the raid of his house and told Newsnight that “this is not what a public service broadcaster should be doing”.
Betraying the lack of courage that infects the higher echelons of the BBC establishment, he added: “I think it would be crazy for the BBC arguing that there is some principle of freedom of speech involved and to appeal this decision.
“They should swallow hard, say they made a mistake, apologise as they have to Cliff Richard, move on and not do it again.”
You don’t have to be a fan of how the Beeb covered the Cliff investigation to be worried about the High Court ruling.
The BBC’s coverage was certainly sensationalist. Its use of a helicopter to capture images of the police approaching Sir Cliff’s home was excessive.
It was poor journalism, unbecoming of the public broadcaster.
And it is unquestionable that Sir Cliff’s reputation took a beating as a result.
Thankfully, though, the vast majority of Brits are fair-minded.
So when, in 2016, South Yorkshire Police dropped the charges against Sir Cliff — which related to accusations made by four men about events between 1958 and 1983 — most of us would have thought: “That’s an end to it.”
Indeed, the cheers for Sir Cliff outside the court this week confirm he still holds a special place in the national heart.
Yet while we sympathise with Sir Cliff, we should feel deep discomfort with the judge’s ruling. To issue a judgement like this in response to Beeb stupidity is like using a turbo-powered steamroller to crush a nut. Mr Justice Mann, the judge in the case, awarded Sir Cliff £210,000 in damages.
Mann’s real beef with the BBC is not that it went to town on the Cliff story, with helicopters and salacious headlines, but that it dared to utter his name.
It should not have done this, he says.
And now if any media outlet reveals the name of a suspect who hasn’t yet been charged, it could land itself in very hot water. Justice Mann is essentially saying a famous person’s right to privacy trumps the public’s right to know.
Those sections of the chattering classes that have always disliked press freedom have been loudly cheering his ruling.
Conservative MP Anna Soubry even called on Theresa May to make it law.
It should be called “Cliff’s Law”, she said, and it should ban the naming of suspects before they have been charged.
There is one group of people who would cheer such a law even more loudly than the illiberal anti-press lobby would: the criminal fraternity.
No one would benefit more than crooks and predators from the effective ban on naming suspects pre-charging.
This ruling will comfort them. They will know that, even as the police start poking about in their affairs, no one else will find out about it, and therefore none of their other victims will be able to come forward. As well as helping the crooked, the ruling could hurt the innocent.
It will do nothing to prevent people on the Wild West Web, especially on social media, from whispering about who has been arrested. If the police, chilled by Mann’s ruling, were to say: “A 77-year-old from Berkshire has been arrested in relation to sexual abuse,” the online rumour-mill would go into overdrive.
And courtesy of Justice Mann, responsible media outlets would not be able to clarify the situation by saying: “Actually, the person who has been arrested is . . . ”
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Boosting criminals and subjecting the innocent to endless rumours — this is a disaster for a free, fair society.
This is why the BBC must appeal. The Beeb is the public service broadcaster. And it would be a huge disservice to the public if it failed to fight back against this dangerous ruling.
It must now stand against this judgment that hurls a spanner in the works of justice and honest public debate, and make the case for media freedom and open justice.
- Brendan O’Neill is the editor of spiked-online