R v Blackpool Justices, ex parte Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1972 |
| Year | 1972 |
| Court | Divisional Court |
Justices - Committal proceedings - Publicity, restriction on - Order lifting restriction - Further defendants joined after order made - Whether bound - Subsequent order imposing restrictions - Whether valid -
Three defendants appeared before justices and were remanded on charges under section 4 of the
On the motion:—
Held, (1) that section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 did not require an application for an order under section 3 (2) to be made at any particular time, and a defendant wishing to bide his time should do so (post, p. 99E); that defendants who were joined in proceedings at a later stage than the making of an order under section 3 (2) had no rights which they would not have enjoyed if they had been parties to the proceedings from the beginning (post, p. 99G): and that, accordingly, since the order under section 3 (2) was made in committal proceedings in respect of a charge under section 4 of the
(2) That, whether or not the Director of Public Prosecutions had assumed control over the proceedings before the order under section 3 (2) was made, the three defendants were validly in custody under the warrant for their arrest and appeared before examining justices within section 35 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 when the order was made, so that no objection under section 4 of the
The following cases are referred to in the judgments:
Reg. v. Bow Street Magistrate, Ex parte Kray (Reginald) [
Reg. v. Russell, Ex parte Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd. [
The following additional cases were cited in argument:
Reg. v. Angel [
Reg. v. Warn [
MOTION for an order of mandamus and alternatively for an order of certiorari.
At 2 p.m. on December 1, 1971, the applicants, Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd., applied ex parte for an order of mandamus directed to Blackpool justices to order that section 3 (1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 should not apply to reports of committal proceedings being heard in Blackpool magistrates' court against the defendants, Frederick Joseph Sewell, Charles Henry Haynes, Dennis George Bond, John Patrick Spry, Thomas Farrell Flannigan, Irene Jermain, Barbara Adeline Palmer, Eugene Francis Kerrigan, Panayiotis Nicou Panayiotou and Nitsa Stavrou; or alternatively for an order of certiorari to bring up and quash a decision of the justices on November 29, 1971, whereby it was ordered that section 3 (1) of the Act of 1967 should apply to reporting of the committal proceedings against the defendants. The grounds on which the relief was sought were: that on September 8, 1971, pursuant to section 3 (2) of the Act of 1967, the justices ordered, on the application of counsel for the defendants Jermain, Palmer and Kerrigan, that the provisions of section 3 (1) should not apply to reports of the proceedings against them; that the order of September 8 applied to committal proceedings being heard on November 29 against those defendants; and that the justices had no power to make the purported decision of November 29. The applicants were granted leave to move on short notice of motion returnable at 2 p.m. on December 2, on which date the...
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Chow Hang Tung v Secretary For Justice
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