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The case arose from the “Plebgate” affair in September 2012, in which it was reported that the then Government Chief Whip had verbally abused a police officer when prevented from leaving Downing Street on his bicycle through the main gate. Official police logs were leaked, and the Sun newspaper received anonymous phone calls about the event on its tip hotline. This fact lead to a concern that, in addition to the leaking of information, there was a conspiracy to bring down a member of the Government and the perversion of the course of justice by certain officers. The Chief Whip resigned from the...

In an action in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice presided over by Mr Justice Arnold, it was determined in a judgment given on 18 March 2016 that the reproduction and communication to the public of clips of TV broadcasts of England cricket matches and films via a sports clip sharing app was not protected by the defence of fair dealing for the purpose of reporting current events. In this case, the claimants, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) owned the copyright to the TV broadcasts of England cricket matches. The defendants, Tixdaq, owned a website (www.fanatix.com) and...

The BBC has issued editorial guidelines for the campaign period before the referendum on UK membership of the EU to be held on 23 June 2016. They apply in addition to the general editorial guidelines that cover issues such as impartiality and broadcasting during elections. The referendum guidelines set out the application of the BBC’s obligation of impartiality in detail. This cannot be achieved by a mathematical formula or use of a stopwatch, but the objective should be to provide a “broad balance” between the two sides. Normally, in daily programmes this will mean a broad balance across each...

On 25 February 2016, Ofcom announced the conclusions of its Strategic Review of Digital Communications in the United Kingdom. The report focused particularly upon Openreach, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of telecommunications company BT Group. Ofcom raised concerns as to whether the particular structure of Overreach was favouring BT against its rivals, leading to a lack of transparency, competition and quality of service for customers, especially in the provision of universal broadband connectivity. Openreach is responsible for the provision of the fibre optic cable system necessary for the...

The case concerned the legality of the stopping and searching of David Miranda at Heathrow Airport in 2013, who was believed to be carrying information relating to the Snowden disclosures which had been published in The Guardian newspaper (see IRIS 2016-2/28). Miranda is the spouse of Glenn Greenwald, a journalist who at the material time was working for The Guardian. The police relied on the Terrorism Act 2000 (TACT), and the High Court held that the actions of the police were legal, but gave leave to appeal. The Court of Appeal suggested that there were three questions before it: (a) the definition...