Courts ‘must tackle social media risk to trials’

THE justice system must “catch up with the modern world”, the Attorney General has said, as he signalled that contempt of court laws could change to cope with the social media age.

Launching a review into how posts on social networks were affecting justice, Jeremy Wright QC said that “there may be a role” for companies to do more to protect against “trial by social media”.

He told The Daily Telegraph: “If you go back a few years, the only people capable of reaching a wide enough audience that there was a serious risk of prejudicing a jury were established media outlets.

“And they, broadly speaking, knew what the 1981 Contempt of Court Act said, they knew where the line was between what you could say and what you couldn’t. Sometimes they transgressed, of course, but they, at least broadly speaking as an entity, knew what the rules were.

“That’s not true of members of the public, who don’t understand what the Contempt of Court Act says, and probably don’t realise what damage their piece of social media commentary or comment might do. So we are definitely in a different world and that’s why this has to be thought about.”

He said “we shouldn’t pretend” jurors would always behave properly and avoid actions such as looking up a defendant on the internet, but that the Government was making efforts to make sure they knew the rules.

In 2015 a new criminal offence of juror misconduct was created to catch jurors who researched details about a case.

“We also have to contemplate the possibility that responsible jurors, not trying to look for anything about a case might just stumble upon commentary if it’s widespread enough in their normal social media usage, and that’s the world in which we now live and the world we have to deal with,” he added.

Mr Wright is asking lawyers and judges to cite cases where social media had interfered with a trial and recommend any changes as a result of their experiences.

He said he hoped social media companies would co-operate with the Government to make sure social networks were not “safe spaces for criminal activity”.

The call for evidence, which launches today, is open until Dec 8.