DPP v Channel Four Television Company Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 31 July 1992 |
| Date | 31 July 1992 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Queen's Bench Divisional Court
Before Lord Justice Woolf and Mr Justice Pill
Broadcasting - information - unqualified undertaking not to reveal source - moral dilemma
Television companies were at fault in giving unqualified assurances not to reveal the identity of a source who had provided information used in a programme alleging collusion between members of the RUC and loyalist terrorists.
The companies should have realised the obvious risk of having either to break the undertaking or be in breach of a court order under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court so held in fining Channel Four Television Co Ltd and Box Productions Ltd a total of £75,000 for contempt of court in refusing to comply with an order made by Judge Clarkson, QC, under paragraph 3 of Schedule 7 to the 1989 Act requiring that information which could lead to the identification of the source be produced.
Mr Andrew Collins, QC and Mr David Calvert-Smith for the DPP; Lord Williams of Mostyn, QC and Mr Jonathan Caplan, QC for the companies.
LORD JUSTICE WOOLF said that he fully accepted that both companies found themselves in a very real dilemma.
For genuinely held moral considerations they felt compelled to disobey what they knew well was their legal duty.
Whether they were aware of it at the time, both companies should have appreciated that because of the provisions of the 1989 Act they should not have given an unqualified undertaking to the source.
It should have been obvious to them, particularly having regard to the legal advice which they were receiving, that if they were going to act on the information provided there was at least a substantial risk of an order being made.
Of course, the companies would say that the source would never have co-operated but for the undertakings and without his co-operation there would have been no programme and it was in the public interest the programme be broadcast, so the public interest required them to give the undertaking. However, that, in law, was an impermissible approach for the companies to adopt.
They should have borne in mind that what they were proposing to do would inevitably undermine not only the reputation of the RUC but also, most importantly, the rule of law and thus would help to achieve the very result that the terrorists in Northern Ireland were seeking to...
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Re M (A Minor) (Contact order: Committal)
...is clearly proved and cannot wait to punished." 39 More help can be obtained from another case of criminal contempt, DPP v Channel Four Television Company Ltd [1993] 2 All E.R. 517, 521 where Woolf L.J. said:- "…a judge should only act of his own motion in a matter of contempt if (a) the c......
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...457. Delaney v Delaney[1996] 2 FCR 13, [1996] 1 All ER 367, [1996] QB 387, [1996] 2 WLR 74, CA. DPP v Channel Four Television Co Ltd [1993] 2 All ER 517, Hale v Tanner[2000] 3 FCR 62, [2000] 1 WLR 2377, [2000] 2 FLR 879, CA. Medicaments and Related Classes of Goods (No 2), Re [2001] ICR 564......
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