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George Pell media contempt ruling to be handed down soon
The Victorian Supreme Court is weighing up whether media companies and journalists have a contempt case to answer to due to their initial reports on Cardinal George Pell’s now-overturned convictions on historic child sexual abuse charges.
Naomi Neilson
Victorian Supreme Court’s Justice John Dixon will contemplate whether journalists and their companies will have to answer to the courts for their reporting on Cardinal Pell’s convictions. Justice Dixon is due to hand down his decision sometime in the next few days after hearing submissions alleging that they breached a suppression order.
Of the 100 contempt charges against 12 media companies and 18 journalists, 13 have been withdrawn by prosecutors and lawyers for media have submitted that their clients have no case to answer on the remaining charges and should be struck out.
The County Court imposed the suppression orders over Cardinal Pell’s case to ensure jurors in the second trial did not know he had been found guilty in the first. The second trial was abandoned by prosecutors early last year, allowing the media to name him.
Prosecutors are alleging that the media outlets breached conditions of the suppression order and encouraged their audience to search online for more information – meaning Cardinal Pell’s name and charges. They are also arguing that individual journalists can be held liable as they prepared reports with the intention of them being made public.
Lawyers for the media companies have argued that prosecutors failed to prove a case on the issue of journalists being held individually liable and have failed to prove reports encouraged their audiences to search online for additional information. They said there was no evidence of the latter outside of solicitors for the Office of Public Prosecutions.
Matt Collins QC told the court it was “fanciful speculation” to suggest there were people who heard, read or saw the reports then conducted a successful search online.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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