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On 1 March 2016 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found Sweden in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because it had denied access to court to a person who wanted to bring defamation proceedings in Sweden arising out of the content of a trans-border television programme service (TV3), suggesting that they resort to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. The European Court is of the opinion that requiring a Swedish national to bring defamation proceedings in the UK courts following an alleged defamatory TV programme broadcasted by the London-based company Viasat Broadcasting...

Ofcom has decided that although the BBC had entered private premises without permission, the invasion of privacy on this occasion was warranted because of public interest considerations. The complaint was made against BBC1’s “The Dog Factory”, a documentary concerning the dog trade in Scotland and Northern Ireland, broadcast on 19 May 2015. The owner, Mr David Hamilton, of “The Furnish Kennels” in Northern Ireland, complained that the BBC had interfered with his privacy by filming in the middle of the night on his property without his permission, thus leading to adverse effects on him and his business. The...

A well-known UK comedian (Jimmy Carr) was interviewed on an early-evening (7 p.m.) magazine show on BBC1 on 4 November 2015 to promote his new touring show. In the course of the interview, he retold a joke which he described as his “shortest”-ever joke - “in two words Dwarf shortage”. And he then said, “if you’re a dwarf and are offended by that - Grow up!” Towards the end of the programme, the anchor said that “we” are sorry if anything had been said on the show which might have been “close to the mark”. The comedian had also before that repeated a joke about a Welsh man which implied he had sexual...

The Court of Appeal determined Mr Justice Mann’s damages awards in the High Court judgment of Gulati and Others v MGN Limited for invasion of privacy, including phone hacking, were justifiable and reasonable (see IRIS 2015-7/18). The defendant newspaper proprietor, MGN Limited (MGN) appealed to the Court of Appeal on four grounds arguing the awarded damages were excessive. MGN’s grounds for appeal were as follows: (a) the award should have been limited to damages for distress; (b) the awards were disproportionate when compared with personal injury awards (general damages); (c) the awards were disproportionate...

The UK Communications Regulator, Ofcom, has for the first time imposed a financial sanction on a broadcaster for inadequate compliance procedures. International Television Channel Europe (ITCE) is a general broadcaster on the digital satellite platform, aimed at the Bangladeshi audience in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. A standard licence requires licensees to adopt procedures to ensure that their programmes comply in all respects with their licence conditions and to ensure that such procedures are observed, in particular by ensuring that there are sufficient qualified or trained staff to do so. In...