Law - Court Reporting... try not to get arrested

There are two current cases that we can comment on as journalists. The first is Lord Rennard and the second is the death of young Kular in Scotland. The Lord Rennard case is interesting because it could've been sent to the criminal court but has instead gone into the civil courts as it is now just a dispute between people. Rennard was seen as innocent by the state due to the evidence not being able to persuade people 'beyond reasonable doubt' of the wrong doings. It has been sent to the civil courts because the burden of proof is on the prosecution and it is all to the balance of probability.

Lord Rennard seems to have been cleared of all criminal charges but this means it could go to civil courts instead and so it's not about beyond reasonable doubt'.

The second case is interesting because the proceedings seem to be slightly different. Insofar as the case is taking place in Scotland so it differs from the way proceedings follow in England. It's about the murder of Mikaeel Kular.

We saw a blog post that wrote a profile on Kular's mother and it was kind of damning. Insofar as it described her as a party animal and so on which really is casting a negative light off the bat. But they could hide behind the defence of the 'fade factor' the reasoning is "publish something now and the trail is in 6 months time then by the time it comes along people potentially on the jury would've forgotten completely, more or less anyway. So basically it's a pretty sweet way to save yourself. Duly noted.

Key stages of Magistrates
Prosecution opening
Key prosecution witnesses
Defence opening
Key defence witnesses
Judges summation
Jury sent out to deliberate and come to a verdict

Crime reporting rules
Fair
Fast - (contemporaneous)
Accurate
No recording
No tweeting

sidenote: the Attorney General is Dominic Greive