Legal first as killer is sentenced live on TV
LEGAL history was made yesterday when a sentencing at the Old Bailey was televised for the first time.
Viewers were able to watch live as Ben Oliver, 25, was jailed for life by Judge Sarah Munro QC for stabbing his grandfather to death. The landmark hearing was broadcast by channels including Sky and the BBC, and shown on regular bulletins.
recording equipment was previously banned in English and Welsh crown courts, where the most serious criminal cases are heard. The law was changed in 2020 but the pandemic delayed its use.
Open justice campaigners praised the change for bringing sentencing ‘into people’s sitting rooms’. Viewers heard disturbing details of Oliver’s knife attack on his bed-bound grandfather David Oliver, 74, on January 19 last year.
Judge Munro outlined how Oliver, who has a previous conviction for sex offences against a young girl when he was 15, has autism and had a ‘troubled’ upbringing. As a child, he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of his mother’s partner. in the months before the killing, Oliver became aware of allegations of sexual abuse against his grandfather, who was also said to have mistreated his wife and had affairs. Oliver stabbed him 28 times with a kitchen knife, including in his eyes and mouth, then told his grandmother: ‘He cannot hurt you any more now.’ Oliver, of Bexleyheath, south London, had been cleared of murder but admitted manslaughter.
The judge told him he will serve a minimum of ten years and eight months behind bars. Viewers were only able to see the judge during the video feed, a move designed to protect the privacy of victims, witnesses and jurors.
Live broadcasts are common practice in some countries – including the US, where millions recently tuned in to daily coverage of the civil case between Hollywood stars Amber Heard and Johnny Depp.
But former barrister Catherine Baksi said the judiciary was ‘some way off’ widening the broadcasting scope beyond sentencing, as officials are wary of ‘making the court process into a media circus’.
Justice Secretary Dominic raab said televising sentencing will ‘improve transparency’ and help the public ‘understand better the complex decisions judges make’.
But Emily Bolton, of legal reform charity Appeal, said ‘televising a hand-picked sentencing like this does nothing for open justice’, adding that the still ‘opaque’ legal system leads to wrongful convictions.