drug raids on coldharbour lane

[Dubversion]

I think you're totally wrong - but let's be honest, the laws surrounding drug busts aren't exactly our strong suites, so we could both be talking bollocks!

I'm saying no more until I know more about the case.

erm, it is not about drug busts but about general legal process, and furvert does know what she's talking about.

the drug bust element is a red herring, legal process is legal process.

 

[jd]

The libel stuff is bullshit really... not particularly relevant to criminal proceedings.

I think there's a bit of agreement of sorts - it could be a problem, depending on the facts...

My bet is still probably not. In fact, I'd be willing to put a few quid on it.

 

[Bedgewick3]

Libel/contempt of court?

The Standard's Report seems to be a bit close to the knuckle. I presume they're confident Mr Brown won't sue for libel.

I think that once a person has been charged it becomes contempt of court to publish anything prejudicial. However the period between arrest and charge seems to be a grey area and I think that the media are increasingly pushing back the boundaries of what they think they can get away with.

 

[PacificOcean]

Where all the busts down the Brixton end of Coldharbour Lane? I don't know the names of the resturants but I live at the Loughbrough Junc. end of Coldharbour Lane and saw no Old Bill on my way home last night nor any of the shops shut this morning.

 

[editor]

erm, it is not about drug busts but about general legal process, and furvert does know what she's talking about.

A tenner (for the server fund) says that the case won't get thrown out because of that sign on the door.

You up for it?!

 

[hendo]

i'd say that the laws of libel and contempt apply in that the police have published the poster and therefore are subject to the same laws as any other publishers (such as magazines). whoever printed it is also liable in the same way that printers who publish mags etc are liable for their content.
.

Hold on a mo though. Can't the police claim a degree of immunity from Contempt and the Mags Act if they can say their statements are in the public interest? ie, when they name suspects they want to speak to.

 

[Furvert]

been talking to all my journo's at work, and the concensus here is that, technically, the defence could claim the leaflet was prejudicial, and therefore in contempt. but it is highly unlikely the judge would be arsed to take any action - other than ensuring that none of the jurors selected were from the brixton area.

 

[kea]

The libel stuff is bullshit really... not particularly relevant to criminal proceedings.
.

people who've faced criminal proceedings and been found not guilty have sued the police for libel in the past (i believe) so it is relevant i'm afraid. the difference between the police arresting and charging someone, and slapping up a poster proclaiming their guilt, is quite large. i'd say the latter leaves them open to a libel case if the accused is found not guilty at trial.

http://www.newsdesk-uk.com/law/libelcheck.shtml#assumptions -

To win a case for libel the plaintiff must prove:
1. The words complained of are defamatory.
2. The words complained of refer to him.
3. The words complained of have been published to a third party.

if this person is found not guilty in court, then i think there's a good chance they can claim that anyone who stated for definite that they were guilty has defamed them. this would include anyone putting up a poster on the guy's premises - the cops don't have an exemption so it includes them.

they'd have to prove it referred to them but i don't think that's too contentious - from the same site:

"We're safe if we don't name them."
Not always. All a claimant has to demonstrate to the court is that his family and friends understood the offending article to refer to him. Therefore if , say, you allege that an unnamed police constable, aged 30, working out of the town's central police station, had mistreated a prisoner in the cells, there is the chance of all the constables in their 30s at the station suing. During the 1980s and 90s the Police Federation made good use of this aspect of libel law.
The more detailed the description the better. Get the constable named in an official police statement - that way it's privileged. (see Privilege later)

and the publication issue isn't contentious either since sticking up a poster in a public palce is obviously publishing the allegation to a third party - in this case, anyone who reads the poster.

defences =

JUSTIFICATION
(we are justified in printing this because it is true)

FAIR COMMENT
(the facts are true and the comment on those facts is fair)

PRIVILEGE
The defence of Privilege is an acknowledgement that on certain occasions it is necessary that a person be allowed to speak freely even if, when doing so, he falsely damages another person's reputation.
The occasions on which Privilege exist have been determined by Parliament (Statutory Privilege) or, over the years, by judicial precedents (Common Law Privilege)

out of that lot i'd say the cops' only chance of defence is arguing the poster is covered by priviledge.

edit: hendo, yeah that's what i'm getting at, i'm just being long-winded about it

 

[editor]

...it is highly unlikely the judge would be arsed to take any action.

Don't tell Dub that. I want my tenner!

 

[Furvert]

A tenner (for the server fund) says that the case won't get thrown out because of that sign on the door.

You up for it?!

don't bet dub, you're bound to lose!

i agree mike, it's mega unlikely to be thrown out. i just think that technically, it wasn't a right, fair, or strictly legal thing to do!

 

[Furvert]

Don't tell Dub that. I want my tenner!

bugger off you, he owes me money!

 

[kea]

so, just a bit more about priviledge ...

Common Law privilege is based on the principle that a person who has a moral, legal or social duty to inform another person about a third party should be able to write freely without the fear of a writ for defamation hanging over every word.

not sure exactly how this applies to something like a poster since the site is aimed at journos writing articles, but i'd say it could potentially be a defence ... however, british libel law is 'pro-plaintiff' meaning that the cops would have to prove they didn't libel the guy, not the guy proving they did libel him. iyswim. this puts the burden of proof on the cops to prove that the poster is covered under priviledge.


edit: buzz - IF the person arrested and charged is found not guilty, then he could argue the poster was libellous.

 

[Ms T]

with regard to the libel issue, it doesn't have to be widely circulated in order to be a libel. it has to materially affect the reputation of the person/persons known to be involved in the business/premises where the poster was posted. this generally means affecting their reputation in terms of their livelihood but can also mean their reputation - specially if they're a vicar or somesuch! i believe that the libelled person has to prove they've actually been negatively effected by the libel, and of course that the libel is untrue. truth is an accepted defence for publishers. therefore settling this in terms of libel would have to wait til the court case over the drugs was over.

Actually it's up to the libeller to prove that the allegation is true, not the other way round. I don't think there's much chance of Castro suing the Met for libel, tbh.

With regards to the prejudice issue, I do know something about this as well, and I'm with the editor. It's the police who've put up the poster, and they're going to take the case to court via the CPS, which means they think he's guilty, so it would be somewhat nonsensical for a judge to throw it out of court. As someone else has already said, it's actually seen as quite difficult to prejudice a jury anyway. Also, the boundaries of all this are being challenged all the time. A few weeks ago the Daily Mirror published a picture of one of the Heathrow robbers as he was being arrested. I was frankly astonished by that, and so were the lawyers where I work.

I've just been down CHL, and have chatted to quite a few of the local shopkeepers. They were all quite pleased by what had happened. As the ed said earlier, it's a mark of how things have changed that the police are actually supported by the local community when they raid suspected crack dens.

 

[jd]

people who've faced criminal proceedings and been found not guilty have sued the police for libel in the past (i believe) so it is relevant i'm afraid.

Thanks for the lesson Kea. Wish I'd seen that site before, would saved me going to law school.

I was a bit loose though, so I asked for it. What I was getting at was that libel issues are not relevant to criminal procedure, and they're not, and also that they're not a useful tool for most people because they cost so much to bring.

I agree that the police can be sued for libel, and are, sometimes. Having been found not guilty is a good start on this road, but it doesn't rule a defence of fair comment, since libel cases are determined under the civil standard of proof (balance of probablilities) and criminal cases need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

A defendant could be acquitted on the basis that the jury isn't sure, but the same evidence in a libel case could in fact establish a defence of fair comment... i.e., if the jury think x probably did whatever it is, they might find against libel even if it's not enough to convict.

 

[kea]

Actually it's up to the libeller to prove that the allegation is true, not the other way round.

yeah i just corrected myself on that in my last post

I don't think there's much chance of Castro suing the Met for libel, tbh.

neither do i, i'm just exploring it as an interesting theoretical point.
is it geeky to be interested in theoretical points of law?


edit: buzz - see what i posted a couplea posts ago about not naming people not necessarily making it 'safe'.

jd - sorry about that! yes of course the libel issue is seperate to the criminal case. and yes in practice libel isn't useful a lot of the time. however, i was just exploring the legal point really. geeky i know!
so do you think that this poster could be covered by 'fair comment' then? i'd be interested to know if you can think of any similar cases - i'm having a search on the net but it's kinda hard to google!

 

[jd]

i agree mike, it's mega unlikely to be thrown out. i just think that technically, it wasn't a right, fair, or strictly legal thing to do!

This is just what I've been trying to say, only I haven't done it very well.

It is for the sever fund tho, go on, go on...

 

[laptop]

ensuring that none of the jurors selected were from the brixton area.

Thassa one, as far as prejudicing the trial goes.

Editor - this is very important, given the nature of u75 and how you make some of your living: no-one has been named, but they have most definitely been identified.

A rule of thumb in libel is that if a defamatory statement refers to a class of people with a dozen members or fewer, then each of those people is "identified".

So if I say "all red-haired people are adulterers" I'm OK (as far as defamation goes). If I say "all red-haired inhabitants of the wee village of Farting Magna are adulterers", I'm definitely not. Or wouldn't be, if there were such a village.

Even if I intend not to write about a particular red-haired person. I think I've mentioned before my favourite libel case, from the 20s or 30s: columnist wrote a silly piece about a totally absurd and clearly made-up person, Mr Blennerhasset, an accountant from Cheam. Next day the paper gets a lawyer's letter: "We represent a Mr Blennerhasset, who is an accountant and lives in Cheam..." Substantial damages.

But prejudicing the case is (almost certainly) more of an issue here. If I were the defence I might raise it. But the big risk is that Hizonner would then say "OK, we'll move the case to Snaresbrook" and I'd be up in front of a load of Essex People. If I were Hizonner, I'd simply put a question to potential jurors: "Did you visit Coldharbour Lane between June 16 and [say] July 31?"

As for doing the police for flyposting ...

 

[kea]

woo this is turning into a real legal geek-fest, yay! now that some people who know what they're talking about are here ( ) i'd be interested to know what you guys think of this point about the police being the ones to publish this poster. if it was anyone else it'd be open to defamation law wouldn't it? so would the police be exempt since they're bringing the case? but then technically it's the CPS bringing the case not the cops - would the CPS be exempt? isn't there a difference between charging someone with an offence, and putting up posters claiming the person is definitely guilty of that offence?

 

[laptop]

So if I could show that I was on those premises on that day and people were saying to me "You’re a drug dealer aren’t you, I saw you in that shop and now it say it was used for drug dealing", could I sue?

If you had a quarter of a million to invest in legal fees... and a substantial enough reputation to lose that the possible payout was high enough that you could get the (now compulsory?) insurance against the other side's fees if you lost... yes.

 

[Dubversion]

I don’t understand this at all, if the police raid a place and “find drugs” surely they can put a notice on the door saying they have done that, what is illegal about that, who does it identify?

BuzzSW9(dave)

because until it goes to court, they can't establish that they were drugs, that the drugs had anything to do with the premises yadda yadda yadda..



edited to add: there's also a world of difference between some kind of "Oh, We Found Some Drugs Here" sticker and "Wahey, Another Dealer Bites The Dust, Here Comes My Bonus' style stickers.

 

[kea]

I don’t understand this at all, if the police raid a place and “find drugs” surely they can put a notice on the door saying they have done that, what is illegal about that, who does it identify?

BuzzSW9(dave)

well, think about it like this.
you're a newspaper journalist. the cops have raided this place and you've got a press release from them saying they found a ton of smack and have arrested and charged the person who was on the premises with dealing.
you write a story saying the person has been arrested and charged with dealing and a ton of smack was found on the premises.
or
you write a story saying the person is a dealer and owned a ton of smack that was on the premises.
there's a difference.
now, the only substantive difference between this scenario and the case on this thread is that it's the cops who've put up the poster stating as fact that these people were dealers - not the media. therefore the question arises, in what sense is it different for the cops to publish this information as fact when the press doing so would count as defamation (and hence leave them open to a libel case if the people were found not guilty in court)?

i'm not saying it IS defamation for the cops to do this. i'm just interested in finding out what the law is on this point.

also, the poster doesn't say 'we raided this place and found some drugs and some people haev been charged with dealing'. it says ' these people were dealers' (or words to that effect).

 

[laptop]

so would the police be exempt since they're bringing the case? but then technically it's the CPS bringing the case not the cops - would the CPS be exempt? isn't there a difference between charging someone with an offence, and putting up posters claiming the person is definitely guilty of that offence?

I'm not aware of any specific exemption for the police or CPS. The police have been sucessfully done for libel in the past - even, according to the excellent book Scandal, Odium and Contempt from which I got the Blennerhasset case, in one case where the plaintiff had been convicted.

BUT this area of law is almost all defined by precedent and hardly at all by statute. There is a nagging question at the back of my mind about "Crown Prerogative", too - how much of police/CPS activity is governed by statute, and how much is excercise of the powers of the Crown? You'd want an actual libel lawyer to get advice on any of that. Even then, as with the rest of our "common law" system, an awful lot depends on what Hizonner had for breakfast. Buzz - revise that estimate to half a million.

Ten minutes. That'll be 20 guineas, please.

Oh, and the original question is still prejudicing the trial. Would a juror have seen the notice, or been influenced by someone who had?

 

[jd]

woo this is turning into a real legal geek-fest, yay! now that some people who know what they're talking about are here ( ) i'd be interested to know what you guys think of this point about the police being the ones to publish this poster. if it was anyone else it'd be open to defamation law wouldn't it? so would the police be exempt since they're bringing the case? but then technically it's the CPS bringing the case not the cops - would the CPS be exempt? isn't there a difference between charging someone with an offence, and putting up posters claiming the person is definitely guilty of that offence?

I'm confused now. (see?)

I don't think the CPS or police are exempt from libel cases... they (police) could, as you suggested, be open a case brought against them by someone who they'd charged and was found not guilty.

I'd guess that a judge and perhaps a jury would be less inclined to find against the police than the Sun, say, and the judge could in some circumstances direct the jury on public policy grounds. It's not impossible that it could happen though (although as Laptop pointed out, you need to be rich in the first place to bring a defamation case).

Not sure what point I'm addressing really, if any...

<wanders off feeling baffled>

 

[kea]

i think you're addressing the common-sense one of 'shut up kea this is all theoretical anyway'
i'll pose the question to me mum over dinner tonite and see what she says. she likes these kinds of conundrums, that's why i enjoy them.
goddam my household sounds so legal-geeky now!

 

[jd]

therefore the question arises, in what sense is it different for the cops to publish this information as fact when the press doing so would count as defamation (and hence leave them open to a libel case if the people were found not guilty in court)?

Ah, it was this one. I must keep up.

Answer: it's not different legally, but maybe is a bit in practice. The courts (even civil) are usually inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt.


Edited to add that you all post too fast for me.

Also, Laptop: how did you know my chargeout rate? Uncanny...

 

[laptop]

there's also a world of difference between some kind of "Oh, We Found Some Drugs Here" sticker and "Wahey, Another Dealer Bites The Dust, Here Comes My Bonus' style stickers.

Let's see:

We nicked people here
and we plan to charge them
with dealing drugs

So whatever goes down in the end,
their lives are fucked up big-time
for the next two years at least.



Signed The Plod - Making London Suffer
© 2004 laptop - moral rights asserted - may licence this to you on reasonable terms

​

* "Making London Suffer" was intended as trademark avoidance, given a recent case, but it has a certain ring to it...

 

[kea]

hey that works, you should sell it to 'em

 

[laptop]

Laptop: how did you know my chargeout rate? Uncanny...

Bitter experience. Not of any lawyer in particular, you understand...

 

[jd]

That poster would have been much more reasonable, I think.

 

[editor]

also, the poster doesn't say 'we raided this place and found some drugs and some people haev been charged with dealing'. it says ' these people were dealers' (or words to that effect).

I hate to be picky-picky here (but hey - it's turned into a legal thread so why not?!), but it actually says 'Another Drug dealer Out Of Business' (note: singular).

Followed by the snappy line, 'Crack Down On Drugs'.

There's also a big poster detailing what went on which I suspect carried the same text as the flyer.

Here's the front of Pedro Keys today (the first time I've ever had the bottle to photograph the place!):