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The report of the review by Dame Janet Smith into the BBC’s culture and practices during the Jimmy Saville and Stuart Hall years has now been published. Saville was a highly popular television presenter; it was revealed after his death that he had carried out a large number of acts of sexual abuse, especially against young girls, and many of these had been committed in relation to his work at the BBC. Hall was another popular TV presenter; he was imprisoned after admitting 14 charges of abuse against young girls aged between 9 and 17 years over a period of three decades, once more in connection...

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...