CAUTIOUS WELCOME FOR COURT JUDGMENTS ON TELEVISION

WE’LL SOON be seeing inside our biggest courts for the first time. The Ministry of Justice has announced plans to allow the filming of judges’ sentencing remarks in certain Crown Court trials. These will be shown on TV news and published on websites like The Yorkshire Post.

Although hearings are open, few people beyond relatives and friends of those involved ever sit in the public gallery. Televising of trials in other countries means you’re almost certainly more familiar with what justice looks like in the US, South Africa and even Scotland, than in your local Crown Court.

Photography of any kind has been banned in our courts since 1925. Even court artists are prohibited from working inside, forcing them to complete their sketches from memory outside. Journalists are allowed to use their phones to write notes and post social media updates, but to take photos or videos they must rush down the corridor and take their chances on the court steps.

Some filming has taken place in Scottish courts since the early 1990s, although this has mainly been for documentaries shown later, such as the BBC’s excellent film The Murder Trial about the disappearance of Renfrewshire woman Margaret Fleming.

Progress towards doing the same in England and Wales was stymied by the spectacle of the OJ Simpson case. The sight of lawyers showboating for the cameras, with witnesses turned into minor celebrities, was, not surprisingly, too much for our legal establishment.

But the truth was that viewers couldn’t get enough of it. The later trial in the US of Cheshire au pair Louise Woodward delivered record ratings for Sky News. It’s no surprise that it has been Sky and other broadcasters at the forefront of the campaign to film inside our courts.

Meanwhile, traditional written coverage of even the biggest cases has declined as financial pressures continue to affect the newspaper business. The forensic, daily reporting of the 2003 Soham trial was a distant memory 13 years later when no national newspaper journalists at all attended the sentencing of the Hatton Garden jewel heist gang. The courts have indeed opened up to cameras over the years, but only little by little. Hearings in both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court are now routinely recorded, although my research suggests they feature relatively rarely on the national TV news because proceedings can be too dry to capture the imagination of editors.

It is the rather juicier fare of the Crown Courts that has always held more interest. A pilot scheme in 2016 in which sentencing remarks were filmed at eight locations, including Leeds, proved successful. But even so, another four years passed before last week’s announcement and while welcome, it is frustratingly limited in scope.

The broadcasters will not be able to video what they want. Judges will have to give permission in each case, and it will be those judges alone that we will see on our screens, only when delivering their sentencing remarks. No defendants, witnesses or lawyers will be filmed, and no evidence or crossexamination will be recorded either.

This seems too cautious. Concerns that participants might act up have been dismissed by Scottish judges involved in filming there. Besides, the cameras themselves can now be so small, lawyers taking part in cases at the Court of Appeal have had to ask for them to be pointed out.

While seeing the most dramatic moments of a major trial in our living rooms will have to wait, the new rules will make it easier for judges to explain their sentencing decisions. Supporters

The new rules will make it easier for judges to explain their sentencing decisions.

of open justice hope this will lead to better public understanding of the legal system, and perhaps reduce knee-jerk criticism of sentences that appear too lenient.

While ministers may stress this move is about information and not entertainment, the Bar Council has raised concerns about a growing focus on judges as individuals. The Daily Mail’s ‘Enemies of the People’ headline about three justices who ruled that MPs should have a ‘meaningful vote’ on Brexit has cast a long shadow. For all that judges might want to resist the spotlight, some will become familiar faces if a pithy turn of phrase is deemed newsworthy.

Baroness Hale of Richmond’s announcement of the Supreme Court ruling that last year’s prorogation of Parliament was unlawful turned her into a household name – spider brooch and all.

When the nation’s best-known judge is no longer ITV’s Judge Rinder, we’ll know that things really have changed.