Journalists’ Visits to Prisons
| Author | JA Coutts |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300628 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Journal
of
Criminal Law
person of sound mind it should
not
be their duty to intervene to prevent
his acting as he wishes, it appears
that
the
courts would
not
regard
that argument as relevant to a situation in which there exists a duty of
reasonable care as to the safety of the persons in their custody, however
unusual that duty may be thought to be. Under
the
present decision,
it would appear that the police will be expected to do something
more
than
merely abstaining from providing
the
means of committing
suicide.
It could
not
be said that adeliberately intended suicide is an act of
negligence in
any
ordinary usage of
the
word, so that, at first sight, it is
odd to find
that
the
doctrine of contributory
negligence
is being invoked.
Nor does the definition of 'fault' in s 4 of
the
1945 Act remove
the
oddity. The
word
'fault' is defined in the Act as comprehending negli-
gence, breach of statutory duty
and
acts giving rise to an action in tort,
It
is
not
immediately apparent
how
the deceased's deliberate act could
have
anyone
of these three descriptions applied to it. It was this
difficulty which led Glanville Williams to conclude
that
there should
be 'contributory intention', as well as 'contributory negligence. But, as
Buxton LJ remarked,
when
the case was in the-Court of Appeal,
there
is
no authority for this extension of the meaning of negligence, so
that
it
includes intention (with which, indeed, it is usually contrasted). The
decision of
the
House that the damages against the police should be
reduced by
50%
presumably
now
provides
the
authority hitherto lack-
ing for this extension from
the
ordinary meaning of language. The
House was aware of the consequence of its decision for
the
police,
namely that aperson engaged on a 'suicide mission' or one who,
thinking all is lost, deliberately commits suicide, so that his surviving
family can recover from the police. It would appear that
the
only escape
route.open to
the
police would be to persuade
the
court that the suicide's
estate is liable for a
100%
contribution. Lord Hobhouse, in his (dissent- .
ing) speech, complained that
the
decision in this case means that
the
police will be liable, however slight
the
degree of negligence proved
against them.
Journalists' Visits to Prisons
R v
Home
Secretary,
ex p
Simms
[1999] 3 WLR 328
Two prisoners, whose convictions of
murder
were confirmed on appeal,
were serving life sentences,
but
they continued to protest their inno-
cence. They received visits from sympathetic journalists with aview to
publication of
the
material
and
infonnation which they received in
the
course of those visits. The prison authorities, hearing of the status of
the
visitors and of their intention to further
the
prisoners' protestations of
innocence, informed
the
journalists
that
they would
not
be permitted to
make further visits unless they signed an undertaking that they would
not
use professionally
any
material or information derived from
the
visits. Although
the
journalists had, by virtue of
the
legislation
under
572
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