R v Manchester. ; Stipendiary Magistrate and Another, ex parte Granada Television Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 14 December 1999 |
| Date | 14 December 1999 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
HOUSE OF LORDS
Before Lord Browne-Wilkinson, Lord Cooke of Thorndon, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Saville of Newdigate and Lord Millett.
Criminal procedure - search warrant - excluded material - Scottish search warrant valid in England
Section 9(2) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 did not preclude the endorsement by an English court, under section 4 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Process) Act 1881, of a warrant issued in Scotland for the search of premises in England for material, subject to an undertaking to hold it in confidence.
The House of Lords so held in allowing an appeal by the Lord Advocate from the decision of the Queen's Bench Divisional Court (Lord Justice Brooke and Mr Justice Sedley) (The Times October 22, 1998; (1999) 2 WLR 460) granting an order of certiorari to the applicant, Granada Television Ltd, to quash an authorisation by a Manchester stipendiary magistrate under section 4 of a search warrant issued by the Sheriff Court of Glasgow and Strathkelvin.
Granada had broadcast a documentary programme which carried an interview with a male prisoner at a Scottish prison who claimed to have had unprotected sexual intercourse with a woman when he knew that he was an HIV carrier.
The prisoner's identity was obscured in accordance with an assurance of anonymity by Granada, but after the broadcast a woman complained to the Scottish police that she was the woman referred to and that she had been infected with HIV by the prisoner.
The police, satisfied that the allegations amounted to a prima facie case of causing harm by culpable and reckless conduct, obtained the warrant in Glasgow to search Granada's premises in Manchester for any material which would provide corroborative evidence as to the prisoner's identity.
The Divisional Court had quashed the endorsement on the ground that section 4 had ceased to have effect by reason of section 9(2).
Mr James Turner, QC and Mr Hugo Keith for the Lord Advocate; Mr David Donaldson, QC and Mr Javan Herberg for Granada.
LORD HOPE said that although there was now much common ground between England and Scotland in the field of civil law, their systems of criminal law were as distinct from each other as if they were two foreign countries.
Two aspects of the system of criminal law in Scotland were relevant. Applications to the courts of summary jurisdiction in criminal...
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