Thursday, 7 April 2011
Interview with SALLY PALMER from BBC Knowledge Magazine
I interviewed Sally Palmer from BBC Knowledge Magazine.
This was part of our assignment for the third year Magazine Journalism module. I took an approach to find a magazine that would interest me and produce content that I would be interested in personally or even be eager to work for myself. I decided to go with a little bit of unconventional looks for the interview make it artistic and use cut aways from the magazine purely for the visual effect and learning new editing tricks.
BBC Knowledge Magazine looked perfect for this task.
I wanted to find out how the process of making a magazine looks and how did her day as an editor of this particular magazine is. I was curious about the history of the magazine and what was her drive for working within Magazine industry. I was also interested about her view on celebrity coverage of other magazines as BBC Knowledge is made for a completely different audience. I wanted to know her reasons why she had gone into Knowledge type of magazine content rather than celebrity orientated magazine. Another subject I touched on in the interview was the future of print magazines in light of everything going online and is video based and finally as a future graduate I wanted to find out what sort of advice could she give for young graduates of journalism or freelance writers.
As Sally says on the front page of the online website for the magazine BBC Knowledge Magazine's international publication is "for everyone who is curious about the world we all share – the natural life that inhabits it, the history that has shaped our lives upon it, and the science that is propelling us onward into the 21st century.
Each issue, the best science writers explore life, the Universe – everything. The world’s leading historians explain the past and tell us why it all matters. And wildlife experts file reports from points right across the planet."
Monday, 4 April 2011
Getting Media involved into investigating an alleged miscarriage of Justice
Press are the eyes and the ears of the public, to whom they report said Lord Bingham (ref.1) and The Public interest is the main priority for a journalist to pursue their inspiration, “the information’s value to society is argued to be particularly high, or potentially so.” (ref.1)McNae also gives that Lord Bingham said that “the proper functioning of a modern participatory democracy requires that the media be free, active, professional and enquiring” and that is as long as when working for the public interest (certain information is valuable to the society).
The press is free in UK and journalism can be therefore called "‘the fourth estate’ - the body of professional who police the criminal justice system and act as the public’s eyes and ears - 'a bloodhound as well as a watchdog' ”. (ref.2) And court reporters exercise watchdog role on the justice system having at the same time not much more than the same rights as citizens of this country protecting them in difficult or controversial situations surrounding some of the reporting techniques.
Thanks to freedom of expression, everyone (including press) in UK has a right to communicate information and ideas. Without this right Democracy wouldn’t exit. Textbooks like McNae give that until 2000 UK had ‘residual’ rights – making people free to do whatever law does not prohibit. Before the constitution embedded from European law the law was set by law-jury trial and the rule against prior restraint. After the European Convention of Human Rights was adopted directly into UK law human rights became codified (incl. Freedom of Expression).
Two provisions in section one of the convention - article 8 (which establishes a right to privacy) and article 10 (which is a right to freedom of expression) are of special concern to journalists. Journalism itself is intimately related to Human Rights and the rule of law in a free society, with free speech and the right of the citizen to express themselves to the public good. (ref.2)
Privacy Act in Convention (Art 8) did not previously exist within UK law but constant changes to adjust UK conventions to Human Rights act led to developments within case law. The case law is the system by which reporters of previous cases and the judges ‘interpretation of the common law can be used as a precedent where the legally material facts are similar’.
For journalists the most important part of the Convention is Article 10 Freedom of Expression thanks to which “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall not include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority.” (ref.1)
Journalism and law are closely related professions. "Criminal law such as contempt of court places grave restraint on what journalists can write or broadcast and presents a constant danger of imprisonment or fines. (ref.2) A professional journalist needs to be very familiar with branches of the law. The law is important to journalists not only because it is a fantastic source of news but also it is a constraint on the actions of journalists. Press can see this aim to be of such principle that sometimes the forms of obtaining that information can be questionable (undercover journalism). Within this idea hides the main conflicting idea of obtaining information that is created because of two opposite sections within the European law, Freedom of Expression and the Privacy Act. (ref.2)
Within the law of Defamation, libel and slander “strikes a balance between the media being free to express wrongdoing and individual being able to defend reputation from baseless attacks.” (ref.1) Contempt of Court Act 1981 restricts reporting in the court and this could be also seen as restriction on freedom of expression (recent example: Coroners & Justice Bill 2009 & Counter Terrorism Act 2008, McNae's, ch1.).
Another type of restrictions put on press are so called Injunctions (recent example: Lilly Allen who complaint about press crossing the line and disturbing her right to privacy). Injunctions are “stopping publication when media organisation plans to air matter which an individual argues will breach his/her privacy or duty of confidence owed to it.” (ref.1)
Acting in the Public interest is supported by The Freedom of expression law and Qualified Privilege or Absolute Privilege in certain circumstances. “Under the European Communities Act from 1972 the UK is part of European Union, EU treaties and other EU law are thus part of UK law. “(ref.1) After World War II, Western European nations signed a treaty creating the Council of Europe which was a body that would promote individual freedom, political liberty, and the rule of law.(ref.1) This council’s rules led to a further treaty, The European Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECtHR), which includes fundamental laws like right to life, freedom off torture or freedom of expression. The European Court of Human Rights was created to which individuals can take their case to this court to argue that a signatory nation has failed to protect them from, or to sufficiently compensate them for , a breach of Convention right by a public authority. (ref.1)
The Human Rights Act 1998 that came to force 2 October 2000 increased influences of the Convention and the ECtHR on UK courts because the act integrated the Convention into UK law. The UK does not have a written constitution or "fundamental law". Going back to ancient rules of services of law, in England there is still a common law tradition and the constitution is based on historic documents (eg the Magna Carta); there is also statute law (Acts of Parliament) and case law (the actual decisions made by judges and juries). Case law is a general term used when speaking of sources of law.
CRIMINAL LAW deals with offences against society as a whole (such as murder, violence in general or blasphemy) or offences against another person which - (although they may also be a civil-type dispute between people) are abhorrent to society as a whole. Examples include fraud, dangerous driving, robbery, murder, rape and other types of violence or threatening behaviour. The Crown Court Prosecution (CPS) decides whether the case will be brought to the court.
Few last points to that are certainly worth mentioning are that it is incredibly important for journalists to not only have a wider knowledge about the legal systems and the constitution in the country they are practising their profession at but also to stay alert to challenges from the sides of unreasonable or unlawful restrictions on their freedom. They have to remember that there are two constitutional bulwarks that protect freedom of expression in UK such as jury trial and rule against prior restraint. And last but not least for a journalist to remember is to follow the Code of Ethics that should guide journalists in their work.
“ The issue of alleged wrongful convictions has been inextricably bound up with the UK’s media for the last century. “(...) The media and this important issue have formed a powerful and dangerous partnership. “ Dr Eamon O’Neil (Ref.3)
There are many instances of the press and the issue of wrongful convictions coming together. Conan Doyle. “His two most famous cases involved George Edalji and Oscar Slater: a half-Indian living in England, and a German-Jew living in Scotland. (...) Conan Doyle found himself supporting and publicising both cases widely. The author’s standing and reputation catapulted the cases into the public eye and support for them slowly grew until both were satisfactorily resolved.The involvement of the great writer, the press and the public showed that there was an appetite amongst society for acknowledging that the criminal justice system sometimes gets it wrong and convicts the innocent of crimes they did not commit. (...)" (Ref.3) Canon Doyle’s exposure of the Edalji case helped bring about reform of the justice system itself and contributed to the formation of the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907.
(...) a notable aspect to Slater case however, was the fact that Conan Doyle was attracted to the case after reading a (...) book written by lawyer named William Roughead, a much overlooked person in the whole saga. It was that humble document, which systematically dismantled the case against Slater, which was the spark that ignited the eventual firestorm.” (Ref.3)
When there is the individual claiming wrongful conviction there is the mystery of the case itself which is served up for public consumption through the press. “There is usually a central victim who readers can also identify with; there is the tantalising possibility that the establishment – in the form of the police and justice system – got it “wrong’ which is always of interest to most open societies; there is the high-profile supporter of the case (...) who adds credibility to the case, redressing the moral balance when dealing with someone the system has already convicted and locked-up; there is the opportunity for wider society to jump onboard (...) all of the aspects that create a great story and attract attention of the public becomes worthwhile. “ (Ref.3) All of these parts from “an attractive package for journalists, editors and readers and therefore it is no wonder wrongful convictions and the press often form an intoxicating marriage.” (Ref.3)
The times that have been famously remembered that have exercise the legal system by miscarriages of justice are shown in a short film called: Reeling in the Years 1974-3, which shows two of the cases that I would like to talk about. The case of The Birmingham Six and the case of The Guilford Four (Ref.12 & 13). The Guildford Four case has been brought to the history and a film has been made ‘In the name of the father’ that has kept this glorious moment of justice winning over in our memories.
In the film Who Bombed Birmingham an example is shown when the outcome of investigative work of journalistic genius becomes heroic was the work of Chris Mullin on the Birmingham Six case. It shows how “a brilliant, exemplary and genuinely imaginative piece of investigative journalism (...) can lead to sections of the tabloid press (...). Only with hindsight can we see that their fight with him wasn’t legal, factual or even journalistic – it was purely political. (Ref.3)
Six men were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment after the bombing in Birmingham in 1970s. IRA seemed to be the instigator but what the IRA insisted was that none of the sentenced six were their members. Two of the public houses were bombed by the IRA, 21 people were killed and 162 injured, 6 people were convicted and had been in prison since 1974. A Granada film is a reconstruction of examining of their case by three journalists since 1985 giving the story of the Birmingham six. The journalists kept on knocking on the doors and they did not give up until the truth won. The journalists noticed inaccuracies to do with the times of interrogation by the police and started questioning the course of the investigation that had put the six men into prison. As we can see on the film, the men were brutally beaten and assaulted. Journalists find a clue in ‘playing cards’ and interview men in prison later they decided to run a simple DNA test that proves that the test carried out on the Birmingham six may have been misleading . (Ref.11)
The journalists see a clue in the fact that the men are severely beaten up on their faces as they can see from the pictures, all six men were abused in prison. Looking into the bombing routine - bombings Chris comes to the conclusion that there were four people responsible for the bombing, 2makers two planters and “we have agreed that you are one of them” says the journalist to one of his interviewees. Chris now needs the planters to make the application for an appeal stronger. Chris finds the guy who put the suitcase with the bomb under the table in the pub and later on he publishes a book ‘Error of judgment’, it doesn’t get men out of the prison but it makes the governing bodies start to question things again (Home office 1986). During the questioning Chris keeps his sources covered fulfilling his journalistic duty. Police says to him that they never said that the imprisoned 6 were members of IRA even though that he knows that in evidence they said that the Birmingham 6 was. Further material is being broadcasted, possibility of the DNA judgment to be wrong and mistreating by the looks of the prisoner’s faces. After two programs had been published and book by Chris Muller, 1987 the case goes into the court of Appeal and the case is investigated again as the case has been taken to the court of appeal. 1987 in court, while being questioned, the police officer denies all the allegation on violence used on the Birmingham six and inaccuracies within the schedule of questioning them but the turning point is when the police woman who has previously given a false statement (because she was being threatened) came back to court and said in front of the judge and jury how she witnessed one of the defendants to be physically assaulted, she also heard what was said “This is what we do to the fucking murdering bustards”(Ref.10). Then the forensic scientist who examined the original samples of the defendants’ DNA is called a witness and his statement proves that his judgment then was wrong. In the meantime Chris Mullin goes to the house of the man who he believes to be ‘the young planter of the bomb’ and challenges him to deny what Chris believes to be true. He says that the six couldn’t tell the police where the bombs were as they didn’t know because it was him who knew it. (Ref.11)
The appeal fails but Chris does not give in. It took until the 1991 for the court to admit that they had the wrong men The Birmingham Six spent 16 years in prison before found not guilty and was released.
“Journalists are ethically bound to investigate any claims of innocence for themselves. They are at the most part, trained not to sign up to anyone’s campaign. They are also trained to be professionally sceptical” which does not mean that they are disinterested but maintaining professional balance of open possibilities to clearly see factual evidence and use them effectively to their best potential. “ (Ref.3) Mullin’s enemies were willing to castigate him in order to annihilate the merest possibility that the public would ever know that the Establishment had wrongfully convicted six Irishmen whose only crime was being who they were in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Lesser journalists would have cracked under the pressure and it is to Mullin’s everlasting credit that his truth did eventually come out.” (Ref.3) In this example “the tabloid newspapers not only published erroneous facts before the trial which could have swayed a jury but they went further and called for capital punishment to be brought back. Reading headlines from that era suggests that the newspaper editors had taken leave of their senses and were happy to urge the readers to literally lynch the accused (and as it turned out innocent) men at the centre of the firestorm.” (Ref.3)
Other more recent examples like Barry George “show that certain sections of the media are still willing to frame the facts in a certain way to suit their preconceived agendas. As Dr Eamon O’Neil admits himself he had plodded around editors more times trying to interest them in possible wrongful convictions stories and the numerous outcomes would be suggestion just to interview gangsters because ‘that’s more glamorous’ and he would be often be told that certain criminals claiming innocence ‘must have done the crime because ‘they look like they are guilty’. (Ref.3)
Other great examples of effective investigative journalism are Ludvic Kennedy's great series of BBC team at Rough Justice or more recent Guardian ‘Justice on Trial’ series was a great work of British investigative journalism and as Eamon points out “socially-engaged journalism at its best. (...) Powerful because it comprehensively conveyed the depth of complexity of wrongful convictions in their entirety.” (Ref.3)
There is always the other side of the coin in getting media involved, as I must point out.
Just like being a solicitor or a judge being an investigative journalist is also a profession and with every profession comes desire of financial award at the end of the investigatory route, it is worth keeping in mind that “press does get on board an alleged miscarriage of justice case and uses its considerable resources to investigate and publish on the case. “ Eamon also admits that the “urge to print a hot story on a miscarriage of justice can often overpower the need to call a lawyer and ask whether immediate publishing was a good idea.” (Ref.3) Also remember that “reporters are now under the greater pressure to produce more articles in shorter times than ever before. Publishers and editors seem to believe in the magical powers of technology to make their journalists be in two places at once and never make mistakes. This means that alleged wrongful conviction cases which demand time and resources to examine, are pushed to one side. “ (Ref.3)
Professional and real journalists like Eamon would always aim to put the fullest version of facts before the reading and viewing public, but there are also other priorities that the journalist have to fulfil. He also emphasises that it is a “fact of life” that it is good “to build a strong and open partnership with the press. He has witnessed himself, as he says, to have the crucial witnesses telling him important facts which they would otherwise have denied or acknowledged of hours before to the police officers, criminal defence lawyers and case staff from the CCRC. As he points out, as a journalist, there is “no legal powers to compel a witness to speak out”.
Sometimes journalists are seen as “the last court of appeal for many of the spectrum of witnesses who want to have their say.” (Ref.3) And last but not least, form of well fulfilled role of journalist makes it the last chance if everything else fails, “then well-placed pre piece can undoubtedly shunt a possible wrongful conviction case forward. (...) So the occasionally light-beam of attention from a journalist can jolt the system into action.” (Ref.3)
To conclude, journalist can of course be of great help to challenge a claim of wrongful conviction and reach their aim of “best obtainable version of truth”, but as Dr Eamon says, stay open to the journalist working on an alleged wrongful conviction sometimes turning up something which challenges your position as it is just like lawyers of defence or prosecution it is their job to dig deep in factual evidence.
References
Ref. 1.McNae's Essential law for Journalists (20th Edition)
Ref. 2. Media law and ethics, notes for week 1 of Media Law and ethics module by Chris Horrie
Ref.3. Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)
Ref.11) Who bombed Birmingham?
Part1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTqTbmMgkQ
Part2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNCGyaS3oPk&feature=related
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpPW2LjkYnE&feature=related
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXMUuyEgbb8&NR=1
Part 6 (which is the following part after part 4 on youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XstdO1PY5gQ&feature=related
Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu9isCmV-rs&NR=1
Part 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YBqyYOjCcQ&NR=1
Part 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIO0lClllzI&NR=1
Part 10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nY70XT_Muo&NR=1
Part 11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WhtXQo5EC4&feature=related
Ref.12) Reeling in years 1974-3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_OFo7Crigs&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Ref.13) The Guilford Four, In the name of the father : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgUWn0gVpq0&feature=related
The press is free in UK and journalism can be therefore called "‘the fourth estate’ - the body of professional who police the criminal justice system and act as the public’s eyes and ears - 'a bloodhound as well as a watchdog' ”. (ref.2) And court reporters exercise watchdog role on the justice system having at the same time not much more than the same rights as citizens of this country protecting them in difficult or controversial situations surrounding some of the reporting techniques.
Thanks to freedom of expression, everyone (including press) in UK has a right to communicate information and ideas. Without this right Democracy wouldn’t exit. Textbooks like McNae give that until 2000 UK had ‘residual’ rights – making people free to do whatever law does not prohibit. Before the constitution embedded from European law the law was set by law-jury trial and the rule against prior restraint. After the European Convention of Human Rights was adopted directly into UK law human rights became codified (incl. Freedom of Expression).
Two provisions in section one of the convention - article 8 (which establishes a right to privacy) and article 10 (which is a right to freedom of expression) are of special concern to journalists. Journalism itself is intimately related to Human Rights and the rule of law in a free society, with free speech and the right of the citizen to express themselves to the public good. (ref.2)
Privacy Act in Convention (Art 8) did not previously exist within UK law but constant changes to adjust UK conventions to Human Rights act led to developments within case law. The case law is the system by which reporters of previous cases and the judges ‘interpretation of the common law can be used as a precedent where the legally material facts are similar’.
For journalists the most important part of the Convention is Article 10 Freedom of Expression thanks to which “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall not include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority.” (ref.1)
Journalism and law are closely related professions. "Criminal law such as contempt of court places grave restraint on what journalists can write or broadcast and presents a constant danger of imprisonment or fines. (ref.2) A professional journalist needs to be very familiar with branches of the law. The law is important to journalists not only because it is a fantastic source of news but also it is a constraint on the actions of journalists. Press can see this aim to be of such principle that sometimes the forms of obtaining that information can be questionable (undercover journalism). Within this idea hides the main conflicting idea of obtaining information that is created because of two opposite sections within the European law, Freedom of Expression and the Privacy Act. (ref.2)
Within the law of Defamation, libel and slander “strikes a balance between the media being free to express wrongdoing and individual being able to defend reputation from baseless attacks.” (ref.1) Contempt of Court Act 1981 restricts reporting in the court and this could be also seen as restriction on freedom of expression (recent example: Coroners & Justice Bill 2009 & Counter Terrorism Act 2008, McNae's, ch1.).
Another type of restrictions put on press are so called Injunctions (recent example: Lilly Allen who complaint about press crossing the line and disturbing her right to privacy). Injunctions are “stopping publication when media organisation plans to air matter which an individual argues will breach his/her privacy or duty of confidence owed to it.” (ref.1)
Acting in the Public interest is supported by The Freedom of expression law and Qualified Privilege or Absolute Privilege in certain circumstances. “Under the European Communities Act from 1972 the UK is part of European Union, EU treaties and other EU law are thus part of UK law. “(ref.1) After World War II, Western European nations signed a treaty creating the Council of Europe which was a body that would promote individual freedom, political liberty, and the rule of law.(ref.1) This council’s rules led to a further treaty, The European Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECtHR), which includes fundamental laws like right to life, freedom off torture or freedom of expression. The European Court of Human Rights was created to which individuals can take their case to this court to argue that a signatory nation has failed to protect them from, or to sufficiently compensate them for , a breach of Convention right by a public authority. (ref.1)
The Human Rights Act 1998 that came to force 2 October 2000 increased influences of the Convention and the ECtHR on UK courts because the act integrated the Convention into UK law. The UK does not have a written constitution or "fundamental law". Going back to ancient rules of services of law, in England there is still a common law tradition and the constitution is based on historic documents (eg the Magna Carta); there is also statute law (Acts of Parliament) and case law (the actual decisions made by judges and juries). Case law is a general term used when speaking of sources of law.
CRIMINAL LAW deals with offences against society as a whole (such as murder, violence in general or blasphemy) or offences against another person which - (although they may also be a civil-type dispute between people) are abhorrent to society as a whole. Examples include fraud, dangerous driving, robbery, murder, rape and other types of violence or threatening behaviour. The Crown Court Prosecution (CPS) decides whether the case will be brought to the court.
Few last points to that are certainly worth mentioning are that it is incredibly important for journalists to not only have a wider knowledge about the legal systems and the constitution in the country they are practising their profession at but also to stay alert to challenges from the sides of unreasonable or unlawful restrictions on their freedom. They have to remember that there are two constitutional bulwarks that protect freedom of expression in UK such as jury trial and rule against prior restraint. And last but not least for a journalist to remember is to follow the Code of Ethics that should guide journalists in their work.
“ The issue of alleged wrongful convictions has been inextricably bound up with the UK’s media for the last century. “(...) The media and this important issue have formed a powerful and dangerous partnership. “ Dr Eamon O’Neil (Ref.3)
There are many instances of the press and the issue of wrongful convictions coming together. Conan Doyle. “His two most famous cases involved George Edalji and Oscar Slater: a half-Indian living in England, and a German-Jew living in Scotland. (...) Conan Doyle found himself supporting and publicising both cases widely. The author’s standing and reputation catapulted the cases into the public eye and support for them slowly grew until both were satisfactorily resolved.The involvement of the great writer, the press and the public showed that there was an appetite amongst society for acknowledging that the criminal justice system sometimes gets it wrong and convicts the innocent of crimes they did not commit. (...)" (Ref.3) Canon Doyle’s exposure of the Edalji case helped bring about reform of the justice system itself and contributed to the formation of the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907.
(...) a notable aspect to Slater case however, was the fact that Conan Doyle was attracted to the case after reading a (...) book written by lawyer named William Roughead, a much overlooked person in the whole saga. It was that humble document, which systematically dismantled the case against Slater, which was the spark that ignited the eventual firestorm.” (Ref.3)
When there is the individual claiming wrongful conviction there is the mystery of the case itself which is served up for public consumption through the press. “There is usually a central victim who readers can also identify with; there is the tantalising possibility that the establishment – in the form of the police and justice system – got it “wrong’ which is always of interest to most open societies; there is the high-profile supporter of the case (...) who adds credibility to the case, redressing the moral balance when dealing with someone the system has already convicted and locked-up; there is the opportunity for wider society to jump onboard (...) all of the aspects that create a great story and attract attention of the public becomes worthwhile. “ (Ref.3) All of these parts from “an attractive package for journalists, editors and readers and therefore it is no wonder wrongful convictions and the press often form an intoxicating marriage.” (Ref.3)
The times that have been famously remembered that have exercise the legal system by miscarriages of justice are shown in a short film called: Reeling in the Years 1974-3, which shows two of the cases that I would like to talk about. The case of The Birmingham Six and the case of The Guilford Four (Ref.12 & 13). The Guildford Four case has been brought to the history and a film has been made ‘In the name of the father’ that has kept this glorious moment of justice winning over in our memories.
In the film Who Bombed Birmingham an example is shown when the outcome of investigative work of journalistic genius becomes heroic was the work of Chris Mullin on the Birmingham Six case. It shows how “a brilliant, exemplary and genuinely imaginative piece of investigative journalism (...) can lead to sections of the tabloid press (...). Only with hindsight can we see that their fight with him wasn’t legal, factual or even journalistic – it was purely political. (Ref.3)
Six men were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment after the bombing in Birmingham in 1970s. IRA seemed to be the instigator but what the IRA insisted was that none of the sentenced six were their members. Two of the public houses were bombed by the IRA, 21 people were killed and 162 injured, 6 people were convicted and had been in prison since 1974. A Granada film is a reconstruction of examining of their case by three journalists since 1985 giving the story of the Birmingham six. The journalists kept on knocking on the doors and they did not give up until the truth won. The journalists noticed inaccuracies to do with the times of interrogation by the police and started questioning the course of the investigation that had put the six men into prison. As we can see on the film, the men were brutally beaten and assaulted. Journalists find a clue in ‘playing cards’ and interview men in prison later they decided to run a simple DNA test that proves that the test carried out on the Birmingham six may have been misleading . (Ref.11)
The journalists see a clue in the fact that the men are severely beaten up on their faces as they can see from the pictures, all six men were abused in prison. Looking into the bombing routine - bombings Chris comes to the conclusion that there were four people responsible for the bombing, 2makers two planters and “we have agreed that you are one of them” says the journalist to one of his interviewees. Chris now needs the planters to make the application for an appeal stronger. Chris finds the guy who put the suitcase with the bomb under the table in the pub and later on he publishes a book ‘Error of judgment’, it doesn’t get men out of the prison but it makes the governing bodies start to question things again (Home office 1986). During the questioning Chris keeps his sources covered fulfilling his journalistic duty. Police says to him that they never said that the imprisoned 6 were members of IRA even though that he knows that in evidence they said that the Birmingham 6 was. Further material is being broadcasted, possibility of the DNA judgment to be wrong and mistreating by the looks of the prisoner’s faces. After two programs had been published and book by Chris Muller, 1987 the case goes into the court of Appeal and the case is investigated again as the case has been taken to the court of appeal. 1987 in court, while being questioned, the police officer denies all the allegation on violence used on the Birmingham six and inaccuracies within the schedule of questioning them but the turning point is when the police woman who has previously given a false statement (because she was being threatened) came back to court and said in front of the judge and jury how she witnessed one of the defendants to be physically assaulted, she also heard what was said “This is what we do to the fucking murdering bustards”(Ref.10). Then the forensic scientist who examined the original samples of the defendants’ DNA is called a witness and his statement proves that his judgment then was wrong. In the meantime Chris Mullin goes to the house of the man who he believes to be ‘the young planter of the bomb’ and challenges him to deny what Chris believes to be true. He says that the six couldn’t tell the police where the bombs were as they didn’t know because it was him who knew it. (Ref.11)
The appeal fails but Chris does not give in. It took until the 1991 for the court to admit that they had the wrong men The Birmingham Six spent 16 years in prison before found not guilty and was released.
“Journalists are ethically bound to investigate any claims of innocence for themselves. They are at the most part, trained not to sign up to anyone’s campaign. They are also trained to be professionally sceptical” which does not mean that they are disinterested but maintaining professional balance of open possibilities to clearly see factual evidence and use them effectively to their best potential. “ (Ref.3) Mullin’s enemies were willing to castigate him in order to annihilate the merest possibility that the public would ever know that the Establishment had wrongfully convicted six Irishmen whose only crime was being who they were in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Lesser journalists would have cracked under the pressure and it is to Mullin’s everlasting credit that his truth did eventually come out.” (Ref.3) In this example “the tabloid newspapers not only published erroneous facts before the trial which could have swayed a jury but they went further and called for capital punishment to be brought back. Reading headlines from that era suggests that the newspaper editors had taken leave of their senses and were happy to urge the readers to literally lynch the accused (and as it turned out innocent) men at the centre of the firestorm.” (Ref.3)
Other more recent examples like Barry George “show that certain sections of the media are still willing to frame the facts in a certain way to suit their preconceived agendas. As Dr Eamon O’Neil admits himself he had plodded around editors more times trying to interest them in possible wrongful convictions stories and the numerous outcomes would be suggestion just to interview gangsters because ‘that’s more glamorous’ and he would be often be told that certain criminals claiming innocence ‘must have done the crime because ‘they look like they are guilty’. (Ref.3)
Other great examples of effective investigative journalism are Ludvic Kennedy's great series of BBC team at Rough Justice or more recent Guardian ‘Justice on Trial’ series was a great work of British investigative journalism and as Eamon points out “socially-engaged journalism at its best. (...) Powerful because it comprehensively conveyed the depth of complexity of wrongful convictions in their entirety.” (Ref.3)
There is always the other side of the coin in getting media involved, as I must point out.
Just like being a solicitor or a judge being an investigative journalist is also a profession and with every profession comes desire of financial award at the end of the investigatory route, it is worth keeping in mind that “press does get on board an alleged miscarriage of justice case and uses its considerable resources to investigate and publish on the case. “ Eamon also admits that the “urge to print a hot story on a miscarriage of justice can often overpower the need to call a lawyer and ask whether immediate publishing was a good idea.” (Ref.3) Also remember that “reporters are now under the greater pressure to produce more articles in shorter times than ever before. Publishers and editors seem to believe in the magical powers of technology to make their journalists be in two places at once and never make mistakes. This means that alleged wrongful conviction cases which demand time and resources to examine, are pushed to one side. “ (Ref.3)
Professional and real journalists like Eamon would always aim to put the fullest version of facts before the reading and viewing public, but there are also other priorities that the journalist have to fulfil. He also emphasises that it is a “fact of life” that it is good “to build a strong and open partnership with the press. He has witnessed himself, as he says, to have the crucial witnesses telling him important facts which they would otherwise have denied or acknowledged of hours before to the police officers, criminal defence lawyers and case staff from the CCRC. As he points out, as a journalist, there is “no legal powers to compel a witness to speak out”.
Sometimes journalists are seen as “the last court of appeal for many of the spectrum of witnesses who want to have their say.” (Ref.3) And last but not least, form of well fulfilled role of journalist makes it the last chance if everything else fails, “then well-placed pre piece can undoubtedly shunt a possible wrongful conviction case forward. (...) So the occasionally light-beam of attention from a journalist can jolt the system into action.” (Ref.3)
To conclude, journalist can of course be of great help to challenge a claim of wrongful conviction and reach their aim of “best obtainable version of truth”, but as Dr Eamon says, stay open to the journalist working on an alleged wrongful conviction sometimes turning up something which challenges your position as it is just like lawyers of defence or prosecution it is their job to dig deep in factual evidence.
References
Ref. 1.McNae's Essential law for Journalists (20th Edition)
Ref. 2. Media law and ethics, notes for week 1 of Media Law and ethics module by Chris Horrie
Ref.3. Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)
Ref.11) Who bombed Birmingham?
Part1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTqTbmMgkQ
Part2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNCGyaS3oPk&feature=related
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpPW2LjkYnE&feature=related
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXMUuyEgbb8&NR=1
Part 6 (which is the following part after part 4 on youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XstdO1PY5gQ&feature=related
Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu9isCmV-rs&NR=1
Part 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YBqyYOjCcQ&NR=1
Part 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIO0lClllzI&NR=1
Part 10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nY70XT_Muo&NR=1
Part 11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WhtXQo5EC4&feature=related
Ref.12) Reeling in years 1974-3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_OFo7Crigs&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Ref.13) The Guilford Four, In the name of the father : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgUWn0gVpq0&feature=related
Methods for investigating claims of Innocence (evidence of facts) - studying investigative Journalism
In their book Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged Michael Naughton and Gabe Tan give fantastic guidelines listing few steps to how to approach an alleged miscarriage of justice.
Crucial are ensuring the retention of evidence and case documents, team will have to ensure of the retention of material by the police, Forensic Science Services (FSS) and by solicitors.
Few good tips there were that if “you are still seeking to challenge your conviction even after you have lost in your appeal or the CCC has refused to refer your case back to appeal courts it is vital that you make a formal written request to the relevant police force for all material relating to your case to be retained.” In case of FSS, “All items submitted by the police to the FSS will normally be returned to the police upon completion of the laboratory examination except in circumstances where the samples are thought to pose a potential hazard (e.g. biological samples such as blood), or, where an agreement has been reached with a relevant police force/organisation for the FSS to retain them, or part of them, under specialised storage conditions, for reference purposes or for possible future re-examination using improved techniques.
The FSS will maintain a document audit trail in relation to retained and destroyed material. The FSS will retain [keep in their possession] material for 30 years as a matter of course in serious cases” including the the murder . This 30 year period do not cover items of perishable nature, like body fluids for example. A “Notification of Intention to Destroy Items of a Perishable Nature' will be sent to the defence team prior to destruction which lists the items that the FSS are intending to dispose of. “ In light of this alleged victims of wrongful convictions should instruct their defence team to respond to the FSS ' Notification of Intention to Destroy Items of Perishable Nature' and request to the FSS for the destruction to be stayed – stopped.” It is also stated here that in addition o above, “ a formal request to the FSS should be made for other non-perishable materials to be retained beyond the minimum retention period.” In situation when the materials have been destroyed it is still possible that material taken from the item has still been retained. Further advise is given here that “it is worth contacting the FSS to ascertain the specific items and samples that they still hold in relation to your case.”
Retention policy with forensic science providers other than FSS is within General Specification Schedule 6A Items 3.22-3.26 Storage, Retention and Disposal, further on it was advaised again that “it is recommended that it be requested in writing to the forensic science that the police need to be contacted is that once a forensic science provider has finished with a case, most exhibits will be sent back to the police. However, certain items such as microscope slides , DNA extracts , acetate sheets containing fibre tape lifts etc will be retained by the forensic science provider for a variable amount of time.” an example of a case study given here is the conviction of Sean Hodgson who was imprisoned for murder of Teresa De Simone in 1979 because FSS had incorrectly declared that “all exhibits in the case were destroyed when the first request for DNA testing on the samples was made”. He served 27 years in prison before his conviction was overturned “when DNA testing of the semen sample collected at the crime scene did not match his profile.”
It is also important that the solicitors are also instructed “in writing not to destroy their files, including instructions and briefs, attendance notes and correspondence sent to third parties on their behalf.”
As an important starting point to investigation it is crucial to learn trial proceedings and examin how the jury decides on convictions which I already did go through the law aspect in two of my other posts when looking into law aspects of Criminal sentencing and jury decision making as well as focused on studying specific crime (murder) and different asoects of defence:
Criminal Law– Smith and Hogan, studying Investigative Journalism
Criminal Law by Alan Reed and Ben Fitzpatrick, chosen aspects- studying Investigative Journalism
The trial scripts and judges summing up are very important and probably best starting point before going deeper into specific areas of the case like for example DNA evidence or handprints. It is good to recognise what wa sthe Prosecutions' and Defence case for the defendant.
In Prosecution's Case, as Michael and Gabe point out it is significant to learn what is the prosequtions's version of what happened and what were the evidence supporting this version and what evidence was produced to undermine the defence's case. They also give advise to construct a list of all the proseqution witnesses who testified in court or whose statements were read out in court, and the evidence given by each of these witnesses. It is a key factor to understand evidence that led to the conviction and look for evidence undermining it or as Gabe and Michael say "disprove it tottaly". The same thing should be done for defence case just studying how the prosecution case was undermined by the defence and all the rest to do with the statements but corresponding to the defence. To stand up arguments against prosecition "evidence needs to be found that contradicts their statements or testiminios."
It is also equaly significant to "to get grips with how the police investigation was conducted, how the evidence was obtained, and whether there is evience that could support your case at trial which was not disclosed by the prosecution or which was ommited by the defence team." As an Inocence Project team that re-examines the case "you have to actively find evidence that undermines the prosecution's case and/or produce new evidence that could positively establish that alleged victims of wrongful conviction are innocent ot the crime that they have been convicted of."
When looking at the witness testimonies it is worth looking into things like whether the evidence given to the police is consistent with the evidence that the witness gave in court; "if a witness provided more than one statement, and the evidence which incriminates the alleged victim of wrongful conviction only came out in the later statement, it is crucial to question why the witness did not provide the evidence in his or her earlier statement(s). " Other thing to be done in course of examinations are looking into unused materials like witness statements perhaps there was something in there that that could contradict the witness's evidence or even find out if any of the witnesses had ever had a history of making false allegations.
Further on, loking into witness evidence, eyewitness identification evidence "featured in the prosecution's case at trial and you think that eyewitness might have been genuinely mistaken, (i.e. you are not claiming that the eye witness lied to the police or in court) the following pointers could assist you in proving that the eyewitness identification evidence is unreliable (...).”
Identififation procedure also has to comply with the Police and Crim inal Evidence Act 1984, particulary the Code of Practice for the Identification of Persons by the Police officers (Code d). Other significant tip is that “the witness should not see suspect on any photographs or description of the suspect prior to the ID parade.” Or even “could the witness have heard or heard any describtion of the suspect from the media prior to making the identification?” All these are vitally important, Michael and Gabe also give website that helps with other aspects of identification issues on Crampton, S. (2005) ‘Identification Issues’. (www.unitedagainstinjustice.org.uk )
Other aspect of giving statements is confesions, “if an alleged victim of wrongful conviction is convicted on basis of a confession, and s/he now [is] claiming that confession is false, the following pointers might assist in showing the unreliability of the confession:”
- all police interviews with suspects have to be audio recorded,
- if a person is forced to make a false confesion – check if police compied with the provisions set out under the PACE (Code of Practice C) (including the alleged victim of wrongful conviction)
- if the alleged victim of wrongful conviction is a vulnerabl suspect or suffers from mental or physical disability, check if the proper procedures for interviewing vulnerable suspects were adhered to.
-Does the confession contain describtions like how the crime was committed which do not fit with the evidence ,
- “At which point did the confession emerge? Are there any inconsistencies in the evidence given by the alleged victim of a wrongful convicton in the course of the police investigation? Did the alleged victim attempt to retract their confession in the course of the police investigation?”
-check how long was the alleged victim of wrongful conviction retained in custody before making the confession?
-Was the confession made in presence of the solicitor
- “if the alleged victim of wrongful conviction is alleging that the confession was fabricated by the police, send the statement for analysis by forensic psychologist. There might be words or forms of expressions contained in the statement that does not fit with the age/or educational background of the alleged victim”
-“if the alleged victim might have an undiagnosed mental or personality disorder which could make him/her vulnerable to making a false confession, arrange for a diagnosis by forensic psychologist.”
All above is vital, I will be dealing with more Forensic issues in separate chapter, which I will publish soon.
Finally, last but not least to end this post it is worth adding fue more quotes from Michael and Gabe’s book regarding solicitors. In the centre of all major wrongful conviction cases that Michael and Gabe cited in their book are “defence solicitors who were committed to the plight of the alleged innocent victims and dedicated themselves to assisting them to overturn their criminal convictions.
Such criminal appeal solicitors are vital in attempts to overturn alleged wrongful convictions. They can use their legal powers to ask for, and obtain, disclosure of evidence, challenge decisions made by authorities such as Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or the police, ensure that correspondence to prisoners is confidential and not opened before it reaches them, obtain affidavits from witnesses who want to prove alibis or retract their incriminating statements, they can commission new tests to be conducted to produce new evidence that can call safety of the conviction in question, they can make the application for the appeal or to Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).”
*All quotes and information are from:
Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged
Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)
*My other posts created on basis of this book:
SEE HERE - Claims of Innocence by Michael Naughton and Gabe Tan – studying Investigative Journalism
Crucial are ensuring the retention of evidence and case documents, team will have to ensure of the retention of material by the police, Forensic Science Services (FSS) and by solicitors.
Few good tips there were that if “you are still seeking to challenge your conviction even after you have lost in your appeal or the CCC has refused to refer your case back to appeal courts it is vital that you make a formal written request to the relevant police force for all material relating to your case to be retained.” In case of FSS, “All items submitted by the police to the FSS will normally be returned to the police upon completion of the laboratory examination except in circumstances where the samples are thought to pose a potential hazard (e.g. biological samples such as blood), or, where an agreement has been reached with a relevant police force/organisation for the FSS to retain them, or part of them, under specialised storage conditions, for reference purposes or for possible future re-examination using improved techniques.
The FSS will maintain a document audit trail in relation to retained and destroyed material. The FSS will retain [keep in their possession] material for 30 years as a matter of course in serious cases” including the the murder . This 30 year period do not cover items of perishable nature, like body fluids for example. A “Notification of Intention to Destroy Items of a Perishable Nature' will be sent to the defence team prior to destruction which lists the items that the FSS are intending to dispose of. “ In light of this alleged victims of wrongful convictions should instruct their defence team to respond to the FSS ' Notification of Intention to Destroy Items of Perishable Nature' and request to the FSS for the destruction to be stayed – stopped.” It is also stated here that in addition o above, “ a formal request to the FSS should be made for other non-perishable materials to be retained beyond the minimum retention period.” In situation when the materials have been destroyed it is still possible that material taken from the item has still been retained. Further advise is given here that “it is worth contacting the FSS to ascertain the specific items and samples that they still hold in relation to your case.”
Retention policy with forensic science providers other than FSS is within General Specification Schedule 6A Items 3.22-3.26 Storage, Retention and Disposal, further on it was advaised again that “it is recommended that it be requested in writing to the forensic science that the police need to be contacted is that once a forensic science provider has finished with a case, most exhibits will be sent back to the police. However, certain items such as microscope slides , DNA extracts , acetate sheets containing fibre tape lifts etc will be retained by the forensic science provider for a variable amount of time.” an example of a case study given here is the conviction of Sean Hodgson who was imprisoned for murder of Teresa De Simone in 1979 because FSS had incorrectly declared that “all exhibits in the case were destroyed when the first request for DNA testing on the samples was made”. He served 27 years in prison before his conviction was overturned “when DNA testing of the semen sample collected at the crime scene did not match his profile.”
It is also important that the solicitors are also instructed “in writing not to destroy their files, including instructions and briefs, attendance notes and correspondence sent to third parties on their behalf.”
As an important starting point to investigation it is crucial to learn trial proceedings and examin how the jury decides on convictions which I already did go through the law aspect in two of my other posts when looking into law aspects of Criminal sentencing and jury decision making as well as focused on studying specific crime (murder) and different asoects of defence:
Criminal Law– Smith and Hogan, studying Investigative Journalism
Criminal Law by Alan Reed and Ben Fitzpatrick, chosen aspects- studying Investigative Journalism
The trial scripts and judges summing up are very important and probably best starting point before going deeper into specific areas of the case like for example DNA evidence or handprints. It is good to recognise what wa sthe Prosecutions' and Defence case for the defendant.
In Prosecution's Case, as Michael and Gabe point out it is significant to learn what is the prosequtions's version of what happened and what were the evidence supporting this version and what evidence was produced to undermine the defence's case. They also give advise to construct a list of all the proseqution witnesses who testified in court or whose statements were read out in court, and the evidence given by each of these witnesses. It is a key factor to understand evidence that led to the conviction and look for evidence undermining it or as Gabe and Michael say "disprove it tottaly". The same thing should be done for defence case just studying how the prosecution case was undermined by the defence and all the rest to do with the statements but corresponding to the defence. To stand up arguments against prosecition "evidence needs to be found that contradicts their statements or testiminios."
It is also equaly significant to "to get grips with how the police investigation was conducted, how the evidence was obtained, and whether there is evience that could support your case at trial which was not disclosed by the prosecution or which was ommited by the defence team." As an Inocence Project team that re-examines the case "you have to actively find evidence that undermines the prosecution's case and/or produce new evidence that could positively establish that alleged victims of wrongful conviction are innocent ot the crime that they have been convicted of."
When looking at the witness testimonies it is worth looking into things like whether the evidence given to the police is consistent with the evidence that the witness gave in court; "if a witness provided more than one statement, and the evidence which incriminates the alleged victim of wrongful conviction only came out in the later statement, it is crucial to question why the witness did not provide the evidence in his or her earlier statement(s). " Other thing to be done in course of examinations are looking into unused materials like witness statements perhaps there was something in there that that could contradict the witness's evidence or even find out if any of the witnesses had ever had a history of making false allegations.
Further on, loking into witness evidence, eyewitness identification evidence "featured in the prosecution's case at trial and you think that eyewitness might have been genuinely mistaken, (i.e. you are not claiming that the eye witness lied to the police or in court) the following pointers could assist you in proving that the eyewitness identification evidence is unreliable (...).”
Identififation procedure also has to comply with the Police and Crim inal Evidence Act 1984, particulary the Code of Practice for the Identification of Persons by the Police officers (Code d). Other significant tip is that “the witness should not see suspect on any photographs or description of the suspect prior to the ID parade.” Or even “could the witness have heard or heard any describtion of the suspect from the media prior to making the identification?” All these are vitally important, Michael and Gabe also give website that helps with other aspects of identification issues on Crampton, S. (2005) ‘Identification Issues’. (www.unitedagainstinjustice.org.uk )
Other aspect of giving statements is confesions, “if an alleged victim of wrongful conviction is convicted on basis of a confession, and s/he now [is] claiming that confession is false, the following pointers might assist in showing the unreliability of the confession:”
- all police interviews with suspects have to be audio recorded,
- if a person is forced to make a false confesion – check if police compied with the provisions set out under the PACE (Code of Practice C) (including the alleged victim of wrongful conviction)
- if the alleged victim of wrongful conviction is a vulnerabl suspect or suffers from mental or physical disability, check if the proper procedures for interviewing vulnerable suspects were adhered to.
-Does the confession contain describtions like how the crime was committed which do not fit with the evidence ,
- “At which point did the confession emerge? Are there any inconsistencies in the evidence given by the alleged victim of a wrongful convicton in the course of the police investigation? Did the alleged victim attempt to retract their confession in the course of the police investigation?”
-check how long was the alleged victim of wrongful conviction retained in custody before making the confession?
-Was the confession made in presence of the solicitor
- “if the alleged victim of wrongful conviction is alleging that the confession was fabricated by the police, send the statement for analysis by forensic psychologist. There might be words or forms of expressions contained in the statement that does not fit with the age/or educational background of the alleged victim”
-“if the alleged victim might have an undiagnosed mental or personality disorder which could make him/her vulnerable to making a false confession, arrange for a diagnosis by forensic psychologist.”
All above is vital, I will be dealing with more Forensic issues in separate chapter, which I will publish soon.
Finally, last but not least to end this post it is worth adding fue more quotes from Michael and Gabe’s book regarding solicitors. In the centre of all major wrongful conviction cases that Michael and Gabe cited in their book are “defence solicitors who were committed to the plight of the alleged innocent victims and dedicated themselves to assisting them to overturn their criminal convictions.
Such criminal appeal solicitors are vital in attempts to overturn alleged wrongful convictions. They can use their legal powers to ask for, and obtain, disclosure of evidence, challenge decisions made by authorities such as Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or the police, ensure that correspondence to prisoners is confidential and not opened before it reaches them, obtain affidavits from witnesses who want to prove alibis or retract their incriminating statements, they can commission new tests to be conducted to produce new evidence that can call safety of the conviction in question, they can make the application for the appeal or to Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).”
*All quotes and information are from:
Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged
Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)
*My other posts created on basis of this book:
SEE HERE - Claims of Innocence by Michael Naughton and Gabe Tan – studying Investigative Journalism
Friday, 1 April 2011
Claims of Innocence by Michael Naughton and Gabe Tan – studying Investigative Journalism
“Criminal justice process is not perfect and factually innocent individuals can, and for variety reasons are , wrongly convicted and even imprisoned for crimes they have played no part in.”
Through my research and reading I will be trying to show the emergence of rethinking the circumstances which allowed for some of the wrongful convictions to happen. Claims of Innocence by Michael Naughton is on of these books which explore number of wrongful convictions and introduce the concept of challenging them.
As a third year student of Journalism being part of the Innocence Project I am interested in certain aspects of investigatory techniques as well as trying to learn important law concepts that have affected our case.
In his book, Michael lists causes of wrongful convictions including aspects of the pre-trial and trial stages of the criminal justice process “from false allegations, police misconduct, prosecution and and police non-disclosure, erroneous forensic science and expert evidence, and poor representation from criminal defence lawyers.” Michael, a founder and leader for Innocent Project in Bristol wrote this book along with Gabe Tan giving useful guidelines for not only members of Innocence Project but also future lawyers and investigative journalists.
“Innocence projects were established in recognition of failings of the Court Appeal (Criminal Devision) and the Criminal Cases Review Commission to guarantee that factually innocent victims of wrongful conviction will overturn their convictions. But innocence projects, too, are constrained by the lack of resources and investigatory powers. “
Michael talks about the beginning of the need for creation of organisations like Innocence Project.
“The CCRC [Criminal Cases Review Commission] followed a recommendation by the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1993) (RCCJ) that was prompted by the public cricis of the confidence in the entire criminal justice system, which was caused by the cases of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six and a string of other notable cases in which Irish people were wrongly convicted upon suspiction of being connected with terrorist crimes that were commited by the IRA (Irish Republican Army). “
“The CCRC [Criminal Cases Review Commission] followed a recommendation by the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1993) (RCCJ) that was prompted by the public cricis of the confidence in the entire criminal justice system, which was caused by the cases of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six and a string of other notable cases in which Irish people were wrongly convicted upon suspiction of being connected with terrorist crimes that were commited by the IRA (Irish Republican Army). “
Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) “was set up in response to notorious cases such as Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, but it cannot guarantee that innocent victims of wrongful conviction will have their cases referred back to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Devision) if the evidence of innocence was available at the time of the original trial.”
The CCRC website states ' We do not consider innocence or guilt, but whether there is new evidence or argument that may cast doubt on the safety of an original decision'. It seeks to check the decisions are made within the rules and procedures and to determine lawfulness of the convictions. Important are new evidence that “may undermine legal safety of the criminal convictions”.
Since 2002, applicants for CCRC have to write a letter to the CCRC setting out basis of challenge before proceeding with an application for judicial review.
The CCRC will decide within 14 days id the challenge should be conceded or not. (www.ccrc.gov.uk/canwe.htm> and guide to making application: http://unitedagainstinjustice.org.uk/advice/CCRC%20applications%20guide.html+constraints>)
The CCRC will decide within 14 days id the challenge should be conceded or not. (www.ccrc.gov.uk/canwe.htm> and guide to making application: http://unitedagainstinjustice.org.uk/advice/CCRC%20applications%20guide.html+constraints>)
Following that another quite a shocking fact in English law I found was that if the convicted person doesn't admit the guilt and “refuse to undertake specified offending behaviour programmes to provide the Parole Board with the evidence that it needs to recommend release.” So effectively, law is not particularly concerned with absolute truth, but “with proof before a fallible human tribunal to a requisite standard of probability in accordance with formal rules of evidence” (House of Lords ruling in the case of Director of Public Prosecutions v. Shanron [1974] 59 Cr. App. R. 250) The above accounts for reasons of innocent people being convicted, what is more, the fact that “proof that the evidence that led to the conviction is unreliable does not guarantee that the Court of Appeal (Criminal Devision) will deem a wrongful conviction unsafe and quash it.” Successful appeals in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) are “mainly achieved by new evidence that shows criminal convictions to be unreliable and, therefore deemed to be unsafe.”
Michel lists key causes of wrongful convictions like False Confessions, like in case of Ian Lawless, who in 2001 was convicted and given a life sentence for a murdering Alf Wilkins. His conviction was quashed in 2009 after 8 years in prison after it was revealed that Ian suffered from personality disorder which made him create false confessions because of a pathological need for attention.
Incompetent Police investigation was a reason to convicting Warren Blackwell in 1999. The independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) revealed a series of errors by Northamptonshire Police that contributed to Blackwell's wrongful Conviction.
Example of Police Misconduct can be observed in case of Cardiff Newsagent Three where three innocent people were convicted in 1988 of killing and robbery of cardiff Newsagent Philip Sunders. Johny Kamara spent 20years in prison when “it was found that the police failed to disclosure over 200 statements taken during the course of investigation this injustice has been committed due to so called non-disclosure of Vital Evidence.
George Anderson and Margaret Hewitt were convicted in 2004 of child abuse, their convictions were quashed due to revealing false allegations by one of the complainants who admitted that he had lied.
In 1998, Tony Wild admitted in a BBCRough Justice documentary that he had fabricated the evidence against Reg Dudley and Bob Maynard who were convicted of murdering Billy Mosley and Micky Cornwall, to evade long prison sentence for armed robbery. Both Reg and Bob have served over 20 years of wrongful conviction due to so called Prison Informants.
In 1998, Tony Wild admitted in a BBCRough Justice documentary that he had fabricated the evidence against Reg Dudley and Bob Maynard who were convicted of murdering Billy Mosley and Micky Cornwall, to evade long prison sentence for armed robbery. Both Reg and Bob have served over 20 years of wrongful conviction due to so called Prison Informants.
Flawed Expert Evidence was a reason for creating misleading evidence by Professor Sir Roy Meadow who stated that odds of deaths of two children was 73,000,000 to 1 and Sally Clark and Angela Cannings were both given life sentences for murdering their children. In 2003 it was revealed that their children had most likely died of natural causes.
The conviction of Andrew Adams was overturned after he served 15years in prison due to a poor defence in 1993 in which numerous crucial evidence were overlooked.
“Thousands of people convicted of criminal offences seek to challenge their convictions in the Appeal Courts in England and Wales each year.” As Michael notices, there are various reasons why “alleged victims of wrongful conviction might maintain innocence when they are not innocent” like hope for successful appeal; ignorance of criminal law in which the convicted people do not know or understand that their behaviour is criminal. Other reasons can account for disagreement with Criminal law in which the convicted person is aware of the actions of criminal offence but disagree that they should be convicted; claims that there was a technical miscarriage of justice or even because of shame or even stigma of being associated with a criminal offender.
Striking to find out was for me to find out how the Parole Deal works. Looking at the cases like for example Paul Blackburn and Robert Brown, each of them spent 25 years in prison being innocent and maintaining their innocence, had they acknowledged guilt and had they “confronted their offending behaviour and, thus, demonstrated a reduced risk of reoffending in eyes of the Parole Board, they would, probably, have served around half that time.”
“An appellant challenging a conviction given in a magistrates' Court who fails his/her appeal in the High Court might apply to have the case heard at the Supreme Court.” Which only hears cases from the High Court, what is more it happens in a very limited circumstances where “the case involves arguable points of law and is deemed to be of general public importance.”
“The latest available figures from the Ministry of Justice show that between 2004-2008 (inclusive), the CACD [Court of Appeal, Criminal Devision]received an annual average of 1,627 applicants for leave to appeal against conviction” of which “24% on almost a quarter of all whose made an application to single Judge were successful in having their case referred to the Full Court for an Appeal. “
“Under s.2 of the Criminal Appeal act 1995 the role of the CACD is solely to adjudicate the safety of the conviction and quash a conviction if it decides that the conviction is 'unsafe':
Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Court of Appeal:
a)Shall allow an appeal against conviction if they think that the conviction is unsafe; and,
Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Court of Appeal:
a)Shall allow an appeal against conviction if they think that the conviction is unsafe; and,
b) shall dismiss such an appeal in any other case. “
“An appelant to the Supreme Court may only be brought with the permission of the CACD or of the Supreme Court and, if refused, to The Supreme Court.”
All quotes and information from:
Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged
Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)
Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Criminal Law– Smith and Hogan, studying Investigative Journalism
“The Law Commission recently described murder as a ‘rickety structure set upon shaky foundations. Law Commission Consultation Paper No 177, New Homicide Act for England and Wales (2005) (LCCP 177), para 1.4. See below, p 633. (...) Murder is when a man of sound memory, and of the age of discretion, unlawfully killed within any county of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the king’s peace, with malice aforethought, either expressed by the party or implied by law, [so as the party wounded, or hurt, etc die of the wound or hurt, etc within a year and a duty after the same]. (Coke 3 Inst 47)” (ref.1)
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) sates in Article 2 that everyone has a right to live, murder breaks this law directly.
The Smith and Hogan’s Criminal Law states that, “it must be proved that the defendant caused the death of the deceased person.” (ref.1)
“The starting point is that we are concerned with proof of real state of mind. The mens rea for murder is that D must have malice aforethought, that is, D must have intended to kill or cause grievous bodily harm.” (ref.1)
“The mental element required for the crime of murder, as for the crime of manslaughter, has varied over the centuries. From Coke’s time (...) there has been a steady contradiction of definition of murder but for the unfortunate decision in DPP v Smith. Reporting in 1953 the Royal Commission on Capital punishment (RCCP) (Cmd 8932) found it ‘impractical’ to form a satisfactory definition of murder but it did recommend that the reach of murder be curtailed by abolition of the doctrine of ‘constructive’ murder. Under the doctrine a person was guilty of murder if he caused death during the commission of felony involving violence (eg, rape, robbery) or if he caused death while resisting an officer of justice.” (ref.1)
Further on the book explains the concept of abolition of ‘constructive malice’:
“1. Where a person kills another in the course of furtherance of some other offence, the killing shall not amount to murder unless done with the same malice aforethought (express or implied) as it is required for killing to amount to murder when not done in the course of furtherance of another offence.
2. For purposes of the foregoing subsection, a killing done in the course or for the purpose of resisting an officer of justice, or of resisting or avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest, or of effecting or assisting an escape or rescue from legal custody, shall be treated as a killing in the course or furtherance of an offence.” (ref.1)
Studying elements of crime it is essential to have a look into actus reus and mens rea which are components of crime. “Lawyers have long found it convenient to distinguish the mental element from the other elements for the purposes of exposition of the law and have called it ‘mens rea’. This phrase derives from a maximum quoted by Coke in his Institutes (Ch 1, fo 1o) ‘ Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’, an act does not make a man guilty of a crime unless his mind also be guilty. (...) The elements of the actus reus include elements of conduct, circumstances, and in some offences, consequences. (...)
Most crimes require proof of a mental element of some sort. It has to be proved with the same degree of strictness as the other elements of the crime as the case of Woolminghton (...). It is possible for the courts to dispense with mens rea in whole or in part with offences of strict or absolute liability (...), but, except in the anomalous case of an intoxication offender (...) they can never dispense with the actus reus. There are no ‘thought crimes’. (...)
Above all it is essential to emphasise that “these expressions – mens rea and actus reus – are only analytical tools: they help us to identify which elements of the offence are in dispute etc. The only thing that exists in law is the crime.” (ref.1)
There are two points of controversy in a description of the two concepts. “The actus reus generally requires proof that the defendant did an act. It is argued that since an act is essentially a voluntary movement and not a spasm or convulsion, ‘voluntariness’, though a mental element, is part of actus reus. (...) Some of writers and judges have described these mental elements as part of the mens rea. However, the only thing that really matters is whether they area elements in the crime. If they are, it is immaterial whether they are assigned to the actus reus or to the mens rea.”
All these concepts I already explored in my previous post, by reading a different book I wanted to compare and find if the definitions would differ and bring a new meaning into answers that I am looking for in aspect of murder and finding certain defences and understanding judgment through criminal law.
Again, it is clear that "all the elements of crime charged must be proved" and this is what is very important in understanding how prosecution has to act in order to persuade the jury to their side of arguments.
Other aspect on my research involves speculation and suspicion that leads to a suspect and how a suspect becomes a defendant. studying these concepts is crucial in understanding what would have had to be proved or investigated by the prosecution so that the legal guilt could be found and effectively the suspect turned into convicted person.
"There are may serious offences with law level mensrea requirements such as 'suspiction' and ' having reasonable grounds to suspect'. "
"In Da Silva [2006] EWCA Crim 1654, 'supicion' was held to impose a subjective test: D's suspicion need no be based on 'reasonable grounds'. D must think that there is a possibility, which is more than fanciful, that the relevant facts exist. Use of words like 'fleeting thought' and 'inkling' [vague idea of suspiction] is apt to mislead.(...) the court held that the essential element in the word 'suspect' and its affiliates, in this content, is that the defendant must think that there is a possibility, which is more than fanciful, that the relevant facts exist. A vague feeling of unease would not suffice. But the statue does not require the suspicion to be 'clear' or 'firmlygrounded and targeted on specific facts', or based upon 'reasonable grounds'." (ref.1)
Lord Devlin in Hussien v Chang Fook Kam [1970] AC 942 at 948 defined suspicion as its common meaning to be "in state of conjecture or surmise where proof is lacking: 'I suspect but I cannot prove'. Susption arises at or near the starting point of an investigation of which the obtaining of prima facie prof is the end." (ref.1)
The presumption of innocence is measured within the necessity for the Crown to establish every element of the offence to the standard of proof which will be measured on the balance of probabilities or beyond reasonable doubt depending what sort of offence did the person commit. As mentioned in my previous post the side of the argument that berries the burden of proof does not satisfy the jury/court they lose the case. The defendant on the other hand is not obliged to prove the particular defence in order to be not guilty. However, the defendant still needs to 'raise evidence' of the "defence in order get it on its feet". (ref.1)
As soon as he does so the Crown will have to disprove it, if it fails to do so the defendant is acquitted.
"In a criminal trial, the prosecution will have to satisfy the court of defendant's guilt to 'criminal standard': that is beyond reasonable doubt." (ref.1) which is what I have already learnt from the previous reading, in here there comes another aspect of exception in which "the defence bears the burden of proof the defendant must satisfy the court on the balance of probabilities - that is that it more likely than not. Crudely, that equates to 51 per cent. There is no standard of proof in relation to evidential burdens of proof. The requirement is that the party adduces enough evidence to raise the issue."
"The presumption of innocence is found in all international instruments of human rights and the constitutions of many states throughout the world. It is rightly perceived as a fundamental principle; many would say that it is foundational principle of criminal process.
...
It is submitted that when a challenge is made to the compatibility of a reverse onus the present law requires a three-stage process of decision-making.
1. interpretation of the statue: does the provision in question, interpreted in accordance with the ordinary principles of construction, place a burden on the accused? If so, is it a legal or an evidential burden? If it is evidential no further inquiry need [to] be made about compatibility with Art. 6 (2). If it is a legal burden, the court must move to stage 2 to assess the question of compatibility.
2. Justification of the reverse onus: does the provision in question serve a legitimate aim and is it proportionate to that aim? If the answer is Yes, the provision is an acceptable qualification to the presumption of innocence. The defendant will then bear the burden of proof on the matter in question, although to a lower standard of proof than the prosecution (namely the balance of probabilities), if the answer is No the court must move to stage 3.
3. Reading down the provision: if the reverse legal burden cannot be justified can the court 'read down' the burden to an evidential one, using s.3 of the HRA? If it can it should do so. If it cannot the court should make a declaration of incompatibility of the provision under s.4 of the HRA. (ref.1)
All the above is essential in understanding processes of conviction and at the same time learning the ways that Criminal law works.
Reference:
1. Smith and Hogan, Ormerod. D (2009) Criminal Law, Cases and Materials, 10th Edition
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) sates in Article 2 that everyone has a right to live, murder breaks this law directly.
The Smith and Hogan’s Criminal Law states that, “it must be proved that the defendant caused the death of the deceased person.” (ref.1)
“The starting point is that we are concerned with proof of real state of mind. The mens rea for murder is that D must have malice aforethought, that is, D must have intended to kill or cause grievous bodily harm.” (ref.1)
“The mental element required for the crime of murder, as for the crime of manslaughter, has varied over the centuries. From Coke’s time (...) there has been a steady contradiction of definition of murder but for the unfortunate decision in DPP v Smith. Reporting in 1953 the Royal Commission on Capital punishment (RCCP) (Cmd 8932) found it ‘impractical’ to form a satisfactory definition of murder but it did recommend that the reach of murder be curtailed by abolition of the doctrine of ‘constructive’ murder. Under the doctrine a person was guilty of murder if he caused death during the commission of felony involving violence (eg, rape, robbery) or if he caused death while resisting an officer of justice.” (ref.1)
Further on the book explains the concept of abolition of ‘constructive malice’:
“1. Where a person kills another in the course of furtherance of some other offence, the killing shall not amount to murder unless done with the same malice aforethought (express or implied) as it is required for killing to amount to murder when not done in the course of furtherance of another offence.
2. For purposes of the foregoing subsection, a killing done in the course or for the purpose of resisting an officer of justice, or of resisting or avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest, or of effecting or assisting an escape or rescue from legal custody, shall be treated as a killing in the course or furtherance of an offence.” (ref.1)
Studying elements of crime it is essential to have a look into actus reus and mens rea which are components of crime. “Lawyers have long found it convenient to distinguish the mental element from the other elements for the purposes of exposition of the law and have called it ‘mens rea’. This phrase derives from a maximum quoted by Coke in his Institutes (Ch 1, fo 1o) ‘ Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’, an act does not make a man guilty of a crime unless his mind also be guilty. (...) The elements of the actus reus include elements of conduct, circumstances, and in some offences, consequences. (...)
Most crimes require proof of a mental element of some sort. It has to be proved with the same degree of strictness as the other elements of the crime as the case of Woolminghton (...). It is possible for the courts to dispense with mens rea in whole or in part with offences of strict or absolute liability (...), but, except in the anomalous case of an intoxication offender (...) they can never dispense with the actus reus. There are no ‘thought crimes’. (...)
Above all it is essential to emphasise that “these expressions – mens rea and actus reus – are only analytical tools: they help us to identify which elements of the offence are in dispute etc. The only thing that exists in law is the crime.” (ref.1)
There are two points of controversy in a description of the two concepts. “The actus reus generally requires proof that the defendant did an act. It is argued that since an act is essentially a voluntary movement and not a spasm or convulsion, ‘voluntariness’, though a mental element, is part of actus reus. (...) Some of writers and judges have described these mental elements as part of the mens rea. However, the only thing that really matters is whether they area elements in the crime. If they are, it is immaterial whether they are assigned to the actus reus or to the mens rea.”
All these concepts I already explored in my previous post, by reading a different book I wanted to compare and find if the definitions would differ and bring a new meaning into answers that I am looking for in aspect of murder and finding certain defences and understanding judgment through criminal law.
Again, it is clear that "all the elements of crime charged must be proved" and this is what is very important in understanding how prosecution has to act in order to persuade the jury to their side of arguments.
Other aspect on my research involves speculation and suspicion that leads to a suspect and how a suspect becomes a defendant. studying these concepts is crucial in understanding what would have had to be proved or investigated by the prosecution so that the legal guilt could be found and effectively the suspect turned into convicted person.
"There are may serious offences with law level mensrea requirements such as 'suspiction' and ' having reasonable grounds to suspect'. "
"In Da Silva [2006] EWCA Crim 1654, 'supicion' was held to impose a subjective test: D's suspicion need no be based on 'reasonable grounds'. D must think that there is a possibility, which is more than fanciful, that the relevant facts exist. Use of words like 'fleeting thought' and 'inkling' [vague idea of suspiction] is apt to mislead.(...) the court held that the essential element in the word 'suspect' and its affiliates, in this content, is that the defendant must think that there is a possibility, which is more than fanciful, that the relevant facts exist. A vague feeling of unease would not suffice. But the statue does not require the suspicion to be 'clear' or 'firmlygrounded and targeted on specific facts', or based upon 'reasonable grounds'." (ref.1)
Lord Devlin in Hussien v Chang Fook Kam [1970] AC 942 at 948 defined suspicion as its common meaning to be "in state of conjecture or surmise where proof is lacking: 'I suspect but I cannot prove'. Susption arises at or near the starting point of an investigation of which the obtaining of prima facie prof is the end." (ref.1)
The presumption of innocence is measured within the necessity for the Crown to establish every element of the offence to the standard of proof which will be measured on the balance of probabilities or beyond reasonable doubt depending what sort of offence did the person commit. As mentioned in my previous post the side of the argument that berries the burden of proof does not satisfy the jury/court they lose the case. The defendant on the other hand is not obliged to prove the particular defence in order to be not guilty. However, the defendant still needs to 'raise evidence' of the "defence in order get it on its feet". (ref.1)
As soon as he does so the Crown will have to disprove it, if it fails to do so the defendant is acquitted.
"In a criminal trial, the prosecution will have to satisfy the court of defendant's guilt to 'criminal standard': that is beyond reasonable doubt." (ref.1) which is what I have already learnt from the previous reading, in here there comes another aspect of exception in which "the defence bears the burden of proof the defendant must satisfy the court on the balance of probabilities - that is that it more likely than not. Crudely, that equates to 51 per cent. There is no standard of proof in relation to evidential burdens of proof. The requirement is that the party adduces enough evidence to raise the issue."
"The presumption of innocence is found in all international instruments of human rights and the constitutions of many states throughout the world. It is rightly perceived as a fundamental principle; many would say that it is foundational principle of criminal process.
...
It is submitted that when a challenge is made to the compatibility of a reverse onus the present law requires a three-stage process of decision-making.
1. interpretation of the statue: does the provision in question, interpreted in accordance with the ordinary principles of construction, place a burden on the accused? If so, is it a legal or an evidential burden? If it is evidential no further inquiry need [to] be made about compatibility with Art. 6 (2). If it is a legal burden, the court must move to stage 2 to assess the question of compatibility.
2. Justification of the reverse onus: does the provision in question serve a legitimate aim and is it proportionate to that aim? If the answer is Yes, the provision is an acceptable qualification to the presumption of innocence. The defendant will then bear the burden of proof on the matter in question, although to a lower standard of proof than the prosecution (namely the balance of probabilities), if the answer is No the court must move to stage 3.
3. Reading down the provision: if the reverse legal burden cannot be justified can the court 'read down' the burden to an evidential one, using s.3 of the HRA? If it can it should do so. If it cannot the court should make a declaration of incompatibility of the provision under s.4 of the HRA. (ref.1)
All the above is essential in understanding processes of conviction and at the same time learning the ways that Criminal law works.
Reference:
1. Smith and Hogan, Ormerod. D (2009) Criminal Law, Cases and Materials, 10th Edition
Criminal Law by Alan Reed and Ben Fitzpatrick, chosen aspects- studying Investigative Journalism
" Throughout the web of the English criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt, subject to... the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception... No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained". Woolmington v DPP, Viscount Sankey L.C.
Investigative Journalists are probably experts in this part of law or just as well informed as they know their Media Law. Main focus of Criminal Law turns into facts of the case, "on what happened, rather than on the criminal law itself."(ref.1) And investigating facts and finding the factual innocence rather tan only looking at legal innocence or guilt.
"However, underpinning any discussion, factual or fictitious, of the criminal justice process, is the possibility more mundane question of what behaviour amounts to a criminal offence. Thus, if the question in a television drama is whether a suspect has committed murder, somebody needs to know what, at law, constitutes the offence of murder." (ref.1)
"Criminal Law operates in the area in which the interests of citizens conflict with each other, and where the state claims a legitimate stake in people's behaviour. It is therefore one of many ideal subjects for developing an understanding of how society fits together, and is regulated." (ref.1)
Looking into the burden of proof and standard of proof. "The basic rule of criminal evidence is that the prosecution must prove the case against the defendant. Thus, if a defendant is charged with murder, the prosecution must prove that all the elements of murder are present - that is, that the defendant unlawfully caused the death of human being, with the intention to kill or to grievous bodily hard. The requirement for the prosecution to prove the case reflects what is known as the presumption f innocence." (ref.1) Which in other words means 'innocent until proven guilty'. Essentially it is only prosecution that has to prove the case.
There are also situations where the prosecution does not bear the burden of proof in case that the defendant wants to claim that they are insane, in order to avoid conviction and this is when the defendant will have to prove that they are insane. Further more it is important to know how much proof is needed (the standard proof), " the prosecution must prove their case beyond reasonable doubt" (ref.1), however "it does not mean with absolute certainty". (ref .1)
The meaning of the 'reasonable' in there means that the prosecution has to make you to be sure of it, so strength of persuasion of the prosecution is crucial in presenting the evidence in that case as from what it looks like even though the defence' stand and evidence were factually correct and the person would be factually innocent if the defence doesn't have a strong persuasion and skill to present it, prosecution can win still win the case. It seems like this phrase, 'beyond reasonable doubt' all of the sudden brings up hesitation in fair judgement and it looks like there is room for doubt.
"If after considering all the evidence you are sure that the defendant is guilty, you must return a verdict of 'Guilty'. If you are not sure, your verdict must be 'Not Guilty'." This is what the Judicial Studies Board (...) suggests that judges direct juries on so called standard of proof.
"If the evidence is so strong against a man as to leave only a remote possibility in his favour which can be dismissed with the sentence 'of course it is possible, but not in the least probable.' the case is proved, but nothing short of that will suffice." (Miller v Minister of Pensions, Denning J,) (ref.1)
However, “if the burden of proof is on the defendant, it need never be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. Rather, the required standard is 'the balance of probabilities'. This means, effectively, more likely than not.” (ref.1)
“The … degree of cogency... required... is well settled. It must carry a reasonable degree of probability … If the evidence is discharged, but, if the probabilities are equal, it is not.” (ref.1) In other words the burden of proof in a criminal trial lies in hands of the prosecution not for the accused to prove his innocence, as long defendant pleas 'not guilty' (nothing is admitted) every argument of the prosecution is questionable and will have to prove his guilt.
External element of the offence (actus reus) is guilty act of the crime, and the so called internal elements (mens rea) are in other words guilty mind, meaning that a guilty person committed the crime with intention of doing so. These two main ingredients of crime.
“As a general rule the larger the penalty the less likely the court is to treat it as a crime involving strict liability. The reasoning behind this is that a heavy maximum penalty is an indication of Parliament's intention that the accused should be shown to be blameworthy. “ (ref.1)
In light of the above rule it appears that the question should be asked, what about these who have been wrongly accused. Why this judgement which is supposed to be beyond reasonable doubt can still be within a level of doubt that can allow for an innocent person to be convicted of crime that they did not commit. It does happen, and again looking at the rule above it would make 'in eyes' of law and 'Parliament's intention' that an innocent person can be judged to be blameworthy and convicted and imprisoned while being innocent.
Within the aspect of so called 'mentally abnormal offender (insanity and unfitness to plead) it is very interestingly stated that “the defence of insanity is raised by a defendant who is claiming that at the time he was alleged to have committed the offence he was suffering from a mental condition which would excuse him from criminal responsibility.” (ref.1) This would lead to verdict 'not guilty by a reason of insanity'. Going further into the phrase above, how about if a defendant's mind and skill wasn't sharp enough, 'equipped' in knowledge and skill to commit presumably premeditated crime that would involve from could be classed as a high skill as well as knowledge to cover the evidence so that there is close to none on the crime scene. Would this classify as “a mental condition which would excuse him from criminal responsibility”?
“ The law is not concerned with the brain but with the mind, in the same sense that 'mind' is ordinarily used, the mental faculties of reason, memory and understanding. If one read for 'disease of mind' 'disease of the brain', it would follow that in many cases pleas of insanity would not be established because it could not be proved that the brain had been affected in any way, either by degeneration of cells orin any other way. “ This judgement was said Davlin J. in Kemp (ref.1, page 190), it was also added that “the condition of brain is irrelevant and so is the question whether the condition of the mind is curable or incurable, transitory or permanent.” (ref.1, page 190)
In case of Podola (ref.1, page 181), “ where D sought to rely on hysterical amnesia preventing him from remembering events material to the commission of the crime which involved the murder of a police officer. This emphasises that it is the state of the person's mind at the time of the trial that in in issue. By the time of the trial Padola was clearly able to understand the charges that had been brought against him and knew difference between pleading 'guilty' or 'not guilty'. In this case, if his claims as to hysterical amnesia were true, his difficulty lay in knowing whether to plead' guilty' or 'not guilty' since he could not recall what happened.
Where the issue is raised by the defendant he has burden of proving on a balance of probabilities that he is unfit to plead; where it is raised by the judge or prosecution, the prosecution bears the burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is unfit.” (ref.1) (All the aspects of levels of the defendant to be 'unfit' are understandably to be explored in depth with attendant medical evidence.)
“ The 1991 Act provides that no jury may make a finding that the accused is insane or unfit to plead unless they have received evidence from at least two qualified medical practitioners, at least one of whom must be approved by the Home Secretary as having special experience in the diagnosis or treatment of mental disorder. (…) Once a jury have returned a finding that the defendant is unclear a disability and hence unfit to plead, the jury will then determine, on the evidence already received or now adduced, whether they are satisfied that the defendant did in fact do the act or make the omission charged against him.” (ref.1, page 184)
Insanity as a defence today is seen as a wider range of conditions and "in theory, it could be raised as a defence to even the most trivial assault. However, the result of a successful defence of insanity may be committed to a mental institution for an indeterminate length of time. In effect, therefore, insanity will rarely be raised by the accused on anything but a charge of murder and even there a plea of diminished responsibility would normally be preferred which could lead there a plea of diminished responsibility would normally be preferred which could lead to a determinate prison sentence. " (ref.1) Insanity may be raised indirectly as a defence today. "This could occur because the accused has attempted to plead that he did not possess the necessary mens rea for the offence only to find that the judge has ruled that as a matter of law reason he is advancing amounts to a disease of the mind." (ref.1)
This could partly answer my question from earlier on, for example in Clarke case (ref.1, page 193), "the accused was charged with stealing from a shop. She pleaded that she had taken the items from the shelf absent-mindedly as a result of the depression that she was suffering. If Mrs Clarke had simply rested her case on absent-mindedness, all would probably have been well. Unfortunately, medical evidence was called to support her statements and it was the effect of this evidence which led the trial judge to decide she was raising the defence of insanity." (ref.1)
From what it looks the aspect of the defendant to be not capable of the crime because of not high level of intelligence with dyslexia for example and therefore I can clarify this state of mind to any of the particular of being unfit or call it 'disease of the mind' or example of a non-insane automatism, question is whether it could be defined under any of the mentioned states of mind?
Moving into other aspects of my interest in here, intoxication. As it is given in Criminal Law by Alan Reed and Ben Fitzpatric is that there is posible argument for questioning the mens rea in situstion when defendant is intoxicated, occasion when "he will be so drunk that he does not form the necessary mens rea." (ref.1)
Good question to ask here is whether a certain level of intoxication could give a defendant some sort of alibi that he couldn't commit the crime because of certain level of the intoxication in other words could it be used as a defence?
Alan Reed & Ben Fitzpatrick give this general rule, " intoxication will provide a defence only when it negatives the required mens rea, and even here the defence is severely restricted. We can say that where the effect of intoxication is simply to remove the inhibitions, it will be no defence (...). The defendant will have a defence in these circumstances only if he can bring himself within a defence such as diminished responsibility. "(ref.1)
"Lord Birkenhead took murder as an example. If the accused did not form intention to kill or cause greviou bodily harm bacause he was intoxicated , he could not be convicted of murder (...). The positon would appear to be that voluntary intoxication is a defence only to crimes requiring a specific intent (...)." Could this parts of statements answer my question about having intoxication as part of the defence of being incapable of commiting a crime? Well eventhough it may sound like it is, journalistic nature some aspects that I am questioning doesnt allow me to satisfy myelf with that answer untill I see direct an factual answer as above was in different context and so it may answer it indirectly which is not enough to make it a fact.
Looking at the offences against the person, "murder for example, requires proof that the accused caused death and the offence under s.47 of the Offence Against the Person act 1861 requires proof that the accused caused bodily harm." (ref.1) Further on attempt of definig a murder was "murder is when a man of sound memory, and of age of discretion, unlawfully killeth within any country of realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the King's peace, with malice aforethought, ... " (ref.1)
"Historicaly, when an offender was convicted of murder, they would be required to serve a minimum term of imprisonment - known as 'tarif' - which was fixed by the House secretary, after which they become eligable for release on license. " (ref.1) However, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 placed the sentencing regime for murder on a "stautory footing". (ref.1) To prove Unlawful killing prosecution needs to prove that defendant killed the victim and that the killing was unlawful and the proof must be beyound reasonable doubt. To establish a charge of murder the prosecution also has to prove that "the defendant possessed the necessary mens rea on each element of the actus reus." (ref.1)
References:
1. Criminal Law by Alan Reed and Ben Fitzpatric, (2009) 4th Edition
Investigative Journalists are probably experts in this part of law or just as well informed as they know their Media Law. Main focus of Criminal Law turns into facts of the case, "on what happened, rather than on the criminal law itself."(ref.1) And investigating facts and finding the factual innocence rather tan only looking at legal innocence or guilt.
"However, underpinning any discussion, factual or fictitious, of the criminal justice process, is the possibility more mundane question of what behaviour amounts to a criminal offence. Thus, if the question in a television drama is whether a suspect has committed murder, somebody needs to know what, at law, constitutes the offence of murder." (ref.1)
"Criminal Law operates in the area in which the interests of citizens conflict with each other, and where the state claims a legitimate stake in people's behaviour. It is therefore one of many ideal subjects for developing an understanding of how society fits together, and is regulated." (ref.1)
Looking into the burden of proof and standard of proof. "The basic rule of criminal evidence is that the prosecution must prove the case against the defendant. Thus, if a defendant is charged with murder, the prosecution must prove that all the elements of murder are present - that is, that the defendant unlawfully caused the death of human being, with the intention to kill or to grievous bodily hard. The requirement for the prosecution to prove the case reflects what is known as the presumption f innocence." (ref.1) Which in other words means 'innocent until proven guilty'. Essentially it is only prosecution that has to prove the case.
There are also situations where the prosecution does not bear the burden of proof in case that the defendant wants to claim that they are insane, in order to avoid conviction and this is when the defendant will have to prove that they are insane. Further more it is important to know how much proof is needed (the standard proof), " the prosecution must prove their case beyond reasonable doubt" (ref.1), however "it does not mean with absolute certainty". (ref .1)
The meaning of the 'reasonable' in there means that the prosecution has to make you to be sure of it, so strength of persuasion of the prosecution is crucial in presenting the evidence in that case as from what it looks like even though the defence' stand and evidence were factually correct and the person would be factually innocent if the defence doesn't have a strong persuasion and skill to present it, prosecution can win still win the case. It seems like this phrase, 'beyond reasonable doubt' all of the sudden brings up hesitation in fair judgement and it looks like there is room for doubt.
"If after considering all the evidence you are sure that the defendant is guilty, you must return a verdict of 'Guilty'. If you are not sure, your verdict must be 'Not Guilty'." This is what the Judicial Studies Board (...) suggests that judges direct juries on so called standard of proof.
"If the evidence is so strong against a man as to leave only a remote possibility in his favour which can be dismissed with the sentence 'of course it is possible, but not in the least probable.' the case is proved, but nothing short of that will suffice." (Miller v Minister of Pensions, Denning J,) (ref.1)
However, “if the burden of proof is on the defendant, it need never be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. Rather, the required standard is 'the balance of probabilities'. This means, effectively, more likely than not.” (ref.1)
“The … degree of cogency... required... is well settled. It must carry a reasonable degree of probability … If the evidence is discharged, but, if the probabilities are equal, it is not.” (ref.1) In other words the burden of proof in a criminal trial lies in hands of the prosecution not for the accused to prove his innocence, as long defendant pleas 'not guilty' (nothing is admitted) every argument of the prosecution is questionable and will have to prove his guilt.
External element of the offence (actus reus) is guilty act of the crime, and the so called internal elements (mens rea) are in other words guilty mind, meaning that a guilty person committed the crime with intention of doing so. These two main ingredients of crime.
“As a general rule the larger the penalty the less likely the court is to treat it as a crime involving strict liability. The reasoning behind this is that a heavy maximum penalty is an indication of Parliament's intention that the accused should be shown to be blameworthy. “ (ref.1)
In light of the above rule it appears that the question should be asked, what about these who have been wrongly accused. Why this judgement which is supposed to be beyond reasonable doubt can still be within a level of doubt that can allow for an innocent person to be convicted of crime that they did not commit. It does happen, and again looking at the rule above it would make 'in eyes' of law and 'Parliament's intention' that an innocent person can be judged to be blameworthy and convicted and imprisoned while being innocent.
Within the aspect of so called 'mentally abnormal offender (insanity and unfitness to plead) it is very interestingly stated that “the defence of insanity is raised by a defendant who is claiming that at the time he was alleged to have committed the offence he was suffering from a mental condition which would excuse him from criminal responsibility.” (ref.1) This would lead to verdict 'not guilty by a reason of insanity'. Going further into the phrase above, how about if a defendant's mind and skill wasn't sharp enough, 'equipped' in knowledge and skill to commit presumably premeditated crime that would involve from could be classed as a high skill as well as knowledge to cover the evidence so that there is close to none on the crime scene. Would this classify as “a mental condition which would excuse him from criminal responsibility”?
“ The law is not concerned with the brain but with the mind, in the same sense that 'mind' is ordinarily used, the mental faculties of reason, memory and understanding. If one read for 'disease of mind' 'disease of the brain', it would follow that in many cases pleas of insanity would not be established because it could not be proved that the brain had been affected in any way, either by degeneration of cells orin any other way. “ This judgement was said Davlin J. in Kemp (ref.1, page 190), it was also added that “the condition of brain is irrelevant and so is the question whether the condition of the mind is curable or incurable, transitory or permanent.” (ref.1, page 190)
In case of Podola (ref.1, page 181), “ where D sought to rely on hysterical amnesia preventing him from remembering events material to the commission of the crime which involved the murder of a police officer. This emphasises that it is the state of the person's mind at the time of the trial that in in issue. By the time of the trial Padola was clearly able to understand the charges that had been brought against him and knew difference between pleading 'guilty' or 'not guilty'. In this case, if his claims as to hysterical amnesia were true, his difficulty lay in knowing whether to plead' guilty' or 'not guilty' since he could not recall what happened.
Where the issue is raised by the defendant he has burden of proving on a balance of probabilities that he is unfit to plead; where it is raised by the judge or prosecution, the prosecution bears the burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is unfit.” (ref.1) (All the aspects of levels of the defendant to be 'unfit' are understandably to be explored in depth with attendant medical evidence.)
“ The 1991 Act provides that no jury may make a finding that the accused is insane or unfit to plead unless they have received evidence from at least two qualified medical practitioners, at least one of whom must be approved by the Home Secretary as having special experience in the diagnosis or treatment of mental disorder. (…) Once a jury have returned a finding that the defendant is unclear a disability and hence unfit to plead, the jury will then determine, on the evidence already received or now adduced, whether they are satisfied that the defendant did in fact do the act or make the omission charged against him.” (ref.1, page 184)
Insanity as a defence today is seen as a wider range of conditions and "in theory, it could be raised as a defence to even the most trivial assault. However, the result of a successful defence of insanity may be committed to a mental institution for an indeterminate length of time. In effect, therefore, insanity will rarely be raised by the accused on anything but a charge of murder and even there a plea of diminished responsibility would normally be preferred which could lead there a plea of diminished responsibility would normally be preferred which could lead to a determinate prison sentence. " (ref.1) Insanity may be raised indirectly as a defence today. "This could occur because the accused has attempted to plead that he did not possess the necessary mens rea for the offence only to find that the judge has ruled that as a matter of law reason he is advancing amounts to a disease of the mind." (ref.1)
This could partly answer my question from earlier on, for example in Clarke case (ref.1, page 193), "the accused was charged with stealing from a shop. She pleaded that she had taken the items from the shelf absent-mindedly as a result of the depression that she was suffering. If Mrs Clarke had simply rested her case on absent-mindedness, all would probably have been well. Unfortunately, medical evidence was called to support her statements and it was the effect of this evidence which led the trial judge to decide she was raising the defence of insanity." (ref.1)
From what it looks the aspect of the defendant to be not capable of the crime because of not high level of intelligence with dyslexia for example and therefore I can clarify this state of mind to any of the particular of being unfit or call it 'disease of the mind' or example of a non-insane automatism, question is whether it could be defined under any of the mentioned states of mind?
Moving into other aspects of my interest in here, intoxication. As it is given in Criminal Law by Alan Reed and Ben Fitzpatric is that there is posible argument for questioning the mens rea in situstion when defendant is intoxicated, occasion when "he will be so drunk that he does not form the necessary mens rea." (ref.1)
Good question to ask here is whether a certain level of intoxication could give a defendant some sort of alibi that he couldn't commit the crime because of certain level of the intoxication in other words could it be used as a defence?
Alan Reed & Ben Fitzpatrick give this general rule, " intoxication will provide a defence only when it negatives the required mens rea, and even here the defence is severely restricted. We can say that where the effect of intoxication is simply to remove the inhibitions, it will be no defence (...). The defendant will have a defence in these circumstances only if he can bring himself within a defence such as diminished responsibility. "(ref.1)
"Lord Birkenhead took murder as an example. If the accused did not form intention to kill or cause greviou bodily harm bacause he was intoxicated , he could not be convicted of murder (...). The positon would appear to be that voluntary intoxication is a defence only to crimes requiring a specific intent (...)." Could this parts of statements answer my question about having intoxication as part of the defence of being incapable of commiting a crime? Well eventhough it may sound like it is, journalistic nature some aspects that I am questioning doesnt allow me to satisfy myelf with that answer untill I see direct an factual answer as above was in different context and so it may answer it indirectly which is not enough to make it a fact.
Looking at the offences against the person, "murder for example, requires proof that the accused caused death and the offence under s.47 of the Offence Against the Person act 1861 requires proof that the accused caused bodily harm." (ref.1) Further on attempt of definig a murder was "murder is when a man of sound memory, and of age of discretion, unlawfully killeth within any country of realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the King's peace, with malice aforethought, ... " (ref.1)
"Historicaly, when an offender was convicted of murder, they would be required to serve a minimum term of imprisonment - known as 'tarif' - which was fixed by the House secretary, after which they become eligable for release on license. " (ref.1) However, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 placed the sentencing regime for murder on a "stautory footing". (ref.1) To prove Unlawful killing prosecution needs to prove that defendant killed the victim and that the killing was unlawful and the proof must be beyound reasonable doubt. To establish a charge of murder the prosecution also has to prove that "the defendant possessed the necessary mens rea on each element of the actus reus." (ref.1)
References:
1. Criminal Law by Alan Reed and Ben Fitzpatric, (2009) 4th Edition
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
'Conviction' an amazing true story about ultimate sacrifice and real victory of justice - it should have received higher rating!
I completely do not agree with the rating of the film which I saw was even given 3/5 on some websites or newspaper reviews. This film's value and narrative story has something very special to offer, this film was one of the most valuable and significant films I have ever watched in my life and if films of this type do not deserve a high rating then all the rating system may be thrown out of the window.
One first comments underneath this film's trailer follows: " Someone please tell me what is wrong with Hollywood and why this movie was not awarded an Oscar or Golden Globe? This movie was the best I have ever seen. (...) I hope this movie inspires you to do the same for your family if God forbid something like this should happen. I wish Hollywood would have reconsidered. I say it was better then Black Swan and deserved an award. Hillary Swank was awesome as was Sam Rockwell who played Kenny." (Ref. 5)
"Conviction is a 2010 drama film directed by Tony Goldwyn. It stars Hilary Swank as Betty Anne Waters and Sam Rockwell as her brother Kenneth Waters. The film premiered on September 11, 2010, at the Toronto Film Festival and was released on October 15, 2010." (Ref.1)
The film is based on the true story of Betty Anne Waters, an unemployed single mother who, with the help of attorney Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project, exonerated her wrongfully convicted brother. In order to do this she earned her GED, then her bachelor's, a master's in education, and eventually a law degree from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. She accomplished this while raising two boys alone and working as a waitress part-time. While in law school, she began investigating her brother's case.
The story of a true murder and real conviction of Kenny who was so fantastically acted as by Sam Rockwell took place in1983.
The murder of Katharina Brow in Ayer, Massachusetts in 1980 led the investigation to a completely wrong source and an innocent man was imprisoned.
This story also brings the significance of the Innocence Project to our cinema screens. Winchester University is currently a member of the project and I am proud of it.
Betty Anne (played by Hilary Swank), single mother spends a decade earning a law degree so she can represent her brother at court. She managed to locate biological evidence and then worked with the Innocence Project, to obtain DNA testing on the evidence. Her love, faith and devotion led to proving Waters' innocence and his exoneration on June 19, 2001.
Betty crushes the conviction by revealing the corruption of the police officer Nancy Taylor played by Melissa Leo, a cop who pins the murder on Kenny.
The story is deeply moving and shows heroic actions of Betty, who from a just an average citizen living peacefully with her family and enjoying her life became an extraordinary hero, fearless and unbreakable even when her whole world stood against her. She did not give in and never lost her faith in her brother's innocence.
The fact that the film was based on this extraordinary story shows a great taste and idea for film played by award winning actors.
Bearing all above in mind I was unpleasantly surprised by the lack of audience in the cinema and some of the reviews in the cinema I happened to be watching it at.
Reading comments and reviews on the film like for example one of popular websites, has only given Conviction "generally positive reviews" with an average score of 6.2/10 which I completely disagree with. Further on I read "he critical consensus is: Less compelling -- and more manipulative -- than it should be, Conviction benefits from its compelling true story and a pair of solid performances from Swank and Rockwell. Another review aggregator Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
True stories like this should be rated in it's own individual and category. The play of actors perhaps can be judged performance wise (which I would give 9/10) but the story is real, we can not judge the reality in which someone's life has nearly been wasted in prison for a wrongful conviction. The answer to that is quite simple. We can not.
References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_(film)
2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1244754/
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8070463/Conviction-London-Film-Festival-review.html
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/13/conviction-review
5. shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrPtr0aQx3s
One first comments underneath this film's trailer follows: " Someone please tell me what is wrong with Hollywood and why this movie was not awarded an Oscar or Golden Globe? This movie was the best I have ever seen. (...) I hope this movie inspires you to do the same for your family if God forbid something like this should happen. I wish Hollywood would have reconsidered. I say it was better then Black Swan and deserved an award. Hillary Swank was awesome as was Sam Rockwell who played Kenny." (Ref. 5)
"Conviction is a 2010 drama film directed by Tony Goldwyn. It stars Hilary Swank as Betty Anne Waters and Sam Rockwell as her brother Kenneth Waters. The film premiered on September 11, 2010, at the Toronto Film Festival and was released on October 15, 2010." (Ref.1)
The film is based on the true story of Betty Anne Waters, an unemployed single mother who, with the help of attorney Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project, exonerated her wrongfully convicted brother. In order to do this she earned her GED, then her bachelor's, a master's in education, and eventually a law degree from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. She accomplished this while raising two boys alone and working as a waitress part-time. While in law school, she began investigating her brother's case.
The story of a true murder and real conviction of Kenny who was so fantastically acted as by Sam Rockwell took place in1983.
The murder of Katharina Brow in Ayer, Massachusetts in 1980 led the investigation to a completely wrong source and an innocent man was imprisoned.
This story also brings the significance of the Innocence Project to our cinema screens. Winchester University is currently a member of the project and I am proud of it.
Betty Anne (played by Hilary Swank), single mother spends a decade earning a law degree so she can represent her brother at court. She managed to locate biological evidence and then worked with the Innocence Project, to obtain DNA testing on the evidence. Her love, faith and devotion led to proving Waters' innocence and his exoneration on June 19, 2001.
Betty crushes the conviction by revealing the corruption of the police officer Nancy Taylor played by Melissa Leo, a cop who pins the murder on Kenny.
The story is deeply moving and shows heroic actions of Betty, who from a just an average citizen living peacefully with her family and enjoying her life became an extraordinary hero, fearless and unbreakable even when her whole world stood against her. She did not give in and never lost her faith in her brother's innocence.
The fact that the film was based on this extraordinary story shows a great taste and idea for film played by award winning actors.
Bearing all above in mind I was unpleasantly surprised by the lack of audience in the cinema and some of the reviews in the cinema I happened to be watching it at.
Reading comments and reviews on the film like for example one of popular websites, has only given Conviction "generally positive reviews" with an average score of 6.2/10 which I completely disagree with. Further on I read "he critical consensus is: Less compelling -- and more manipulative -- than it should be, Conviction benefits from its compelling true story and a pair of solid performances from Swank and Rockwell. Another review aggregator Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
True stories like this should be rated in it's own individual and category. The play of actors perhaps can be judged performance wise (which I would give 9/10) but the story is real, we can not judge the reality in which someone's life has nearly been wasted in prison for a wrongful conviction. The answer to that is quite simple. We can not.
References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_(film)
2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1244754/
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8070463/Conviction-London-Film-Festival-review.html
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/13/conviction-review
5. shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrPtr0aQx3s
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Last WINOL of the year 2010 (Week 12-15th December 2010)
This week was one of the most exciting ones for our team as Maria Melano was meant to be our special guest on the sofa at Winol Life last sow of the year. And in fact the last show I would do for WINOL as after Christmas third years are not going to be working for WINOL anymore. Final Year Project is going to take over! So this will be my last post ever on Winchester News Online.
Looking at our audience penetration, we were informed on Monday WINOL is just about to overtake the University's website! We are 165,000 website in the world and our university is 145, 000, in comparison, Southampton University is lower in readership ranking than our WINOL! Fantastic!
All that means that we are not only targeting our audience well but also developing our study of the market.
There was no WINOL news bulletin this week, only WINOL Life and sports.We found out that BJTC will be announcing the resoults around January time. We were also told that there are plans to have channel36 - analouge to broadcast our work.
Within this week it was important for us to make sure that we understand the concept of the factual entartanment, it is more about showing rather than telling. In preparation for the show with maria Melano, Paul and I looked into work of hers. Maria specialies in the design ainly, layout. Her magazine is all about fashion and big names being interviewed/photographed. In the world of fashion things have to be looked at from many different angles (her films/interviews). The magazine trully represents multimedia journalism with its interactive and video/picture led website.
For the running order of the show we have decided to have:
1. Autumn Fashion
2. Christmas dresses
3. alistair steward feature interview
4. Phil Jupitus feature interview (by Joey)
5. Atacama dessert race
6. News review of the semester by Joey
We are planning rehearsing 1/2 pm on Wednesday, we will be aiming athalf hour again and the same set up in the studion with two sofas (The ONe Show). We will have to have the script done by 1pm, and I will have to check and collect all the features onto my hard drive for the show. Every thing seemed to be well organised until... Wednesday
Charlotte, managing editor promised to help out in organising the production team and promote our show -she didn't even turn up
- studion was not ready for the morning
- Maria Melano unfortunately couldn't come in at the end and so we had to go plan b:
- have Chris and Brian as guests - We changed the script
- I still attempted to contact head of fashion at the Winchester school of arts and soem other people but noone could do it in such short notice.
- there was hardly anyone in and our production team was lacking in man power- noone seemed to be willing to help. Which was very frustrating. We had no camera people, floor manager, editor and Josh effectively had to be our director and producer during the recording of the show. I was still running as the feature editor, was in charge of delivering VTS, help in stiudio set etc and at the same time was presenting. Paul and I were in the same uncomfortable situation.
Tomek was a huge help, Rob, Jason and few other students have helped majourly for which i am very grateful.
As you can imagine lack of rehearsals and constant script chanes were very unhelpful. Chris and Brian couldn't be our guests and we actualy had a privilege to have Ian Anderson as our guest, who was one of the best studio guestas that I have ever realt with.
Eventually we managed record the show. It was incredibly hard and very challenging in many aspects but we have overcomed the difficulties and produced the show. I have uploaded it in three parts for now but it will go as a life stream onto the website:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMeOpB7TQLQ
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxnvxm5Akvg
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHj5dJtqrBA
UPDATE FROM THE FEATURES PROMISED LAST WEEK & NEW IDEAS FOR NEXT WEEK
1. Thom Hobbs:
- Akala concert review and a comment piece by Akala on Current Music Industry (completed)
- Adrian Howks - aliens in Winchester? Comment piece (completed)- Feature Interview with Alistair Steward from ITV- completed and used for the WINOL LIFE
2. Katie and Claire:
- Christmas Party deresses-completed-
- Autumn Fashion- is used in the WINOL LIFE
3. Behind the scenes for Katie and Claire feature making - made by Jake but not finished till this week so couldn't use it with the promo link, told him to make a version without promo at the end - he said he has finished it but has not showed it to me at the and (I have not seen him)
4. Andy:
- Feature Interview with lecturer who run through Atacama desert- completed (and used on the show)
- written piece - profile - not completed- short documentary - how were the police techniques changing across the student protests- not completed
- fashion - suits - not completed
5. Hanna (&Justina) Christmas Gifts on law budget - Hanna was meant to do this one and she didn't
6. Radical Fashion - Cara: text, Hanna & Justina : video - naither of them did it
7. Room make over - student acomodation - Cara: text, Jake;video - Jake didn't want to do it at the end so I gave this idea to Justina because her idea on Reading list challenge fell through - she completed room make over feature
8. Phil Jupitus feature interview by Joey - completed
Looking at our audience penetration, we were informed on Monday WINOL is just about to overtake the University's website! We are 165,000 website in the world and our university is 145, 000, in comparison, Southampton University is lower in readership ranking than our WINOL! Fantastic!
All that means that we are not only targeting our audience well but also developing our study of the market.
There was no WINOL news bulletin this week, only WINOL Life and sports.We found out that BJTC will be announcing the resoults around January time. We were also told that there are plans to have channel36 - analouge to broadcast our work.
Within this week it was important for us to make sure that we understand the concept of the factual entartanment, it is more about showing rather than telling. In preparation for the show with maria Melano, Paul and I looked into work of hers. Maria specialies in the design ainly, layout. Her magazine is all about fashion and big names being interviewed/photographed. In the world of fashion things have to be looked at from many different angles (her films/interviews). The magazine trully represents multimedia journalism with its interactive and video/picture led website.
For the running order of the show we have decided to have:
1. Autumn Fashion
2. Christmas dresses
3. alistair steward feature interview
4. Phil Jupitus feature interview (by Joey)
5. Atacama dessert race
6. News review of the semester by Joey
We are planning rehearsing 1/2 pm on Wednesday, we will be aiming athalf hour again and the same set up in the studion with two sofas (The ONe Show). We will have to have the script done by 1pm, and I will have to check and collect all the features onto my hard drive for the show. Every thing seemed to be well organised until... Wednesday
Charlotte, managing editor promised to help out in organising the production team and promote our show -she didn't even turn up
- studion was not ready for the morning
- Maria Melano unfortunately couldn't come in at the end and so we had to go plan b:
- have Chris and Brian as guests - We changed the script
- I still attempted to contact head of fashion at the Winchester school of arts and soem other people but noone could do it in such short notice.
- there was hardly anyone in and our production team was lacking in man power- noone seemed to be willing to help. Which was very frustrating. We had no camera people, floor manager, editor and Josh effectively had to be our director and producer during the recording of the show. I was still running as the feature editor, was in charge of delivering VTS, help in stiudio set etc and at the same time was presenting. Paul and I were in the same uncomfortable situation.
Tomek was a huge help, Rob, Jason and few other students have helped majourly for which i am very grateful.
As you can imagine lack of rehearsals and constant script chanes were very unhelpful. Chris and Brian couldn't be our guests and we actualy had a privilege to have Ian Anderson as our guest, who was one of the best studio guestas that I have ever realt with.
Eventually we managed record the show. It was incredibly hard and very challenging in many aspects but we have overcomed the difficulties and produced the show. I have uploaded it in three parts for now but it will go as a life stream onto the website:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMeOpB7TQLQ
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxnvxm5Akvg
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHj5dJtqrBA
UPDATE FROM THE FEATURES PROMISED LAST WEEK & NEW IDEAS FOR NEXT WEEK
1. Thom Hobbs:
- Akala concert review and a comment piece by Akala on Current Music Industry (completed)
- Adrian Howks - aliens in Winchester? Comment piece (completed)- Feature Interview with Alistair Steward from ITV- completed and used for the WINOL LIFE
2. Katie and Claire:
- Christmas Party deresses-completed-
- Autumn Fashion- is used in the WINOL LIFE
3. Behind the scenes for Katie and Claire feature making - made by Jake but not finished till this week so couldn't use it with the promo link, told him to make a version without promo at the end - he said he has finished it but has not showed it to me at the and (I have not seen him)
4. Andy:
- Feature Interview with lecturer who run through Atacama desert- completed (and used on the show)
- written piece - profile - not completed- short documentary - how were the police techniques changing across the student protests- not completed
- fashion - suits - not completed
5. Hanna (&Justina) Christmas Gifts on law budget - Hanna was meant to do this one and she didn't
6. Radical Fashion - Cara: text, Hanna & Justina : video - naither of them did it
7. Room make over - student acomodation - Cara: text, Jake;video - Jake didn't want to do it at the end so I gave this idea to Justina because her idea on Reading list challenge fell through - she completed room make over feature
8. Phil Jupitus feature interview by Joey - completed
Wales and Scotland photographed features - inspired by Laura Barton
First I photographed views while being on holidays, then I decided to use the magic of Fianl Cut Pro and turn them into Photo-essays with the background music. Then I met Laura Barton and learnt about her style of feature making for the Guarian. Inspired by her work I eventually I decided to use poetic style of voice overs to go with the photoessays what has turned the two pieces into Panoramic features inspired by the beauty of UK views and Laura Barton't style of feature making.
SCOTLAND PHOTOGRAPHED FEATURE
WALES PHOTOGRAPHED FEATURE
SCOTLAND PHOTOGRAPHED FEATURE
WALES PHOTOGRAPHED FEATURE
Laura Barton is a guest at WINOL LIFE SHOW (Week 11)
What a fantastic week it was, no matter how intense or hard organisationally wise it was but how rewarding. Laura Barton was certainly one of our biggest guests at WINOL for our Features team.
Most of my team members worked hard and delivered beautiful packages or redone the ones I requested.Paul and I planned the show well, we chose the features we thought were the best so far, we set up a running order and communicate to the production about our plans. I gave Josh detailed requirements that will have to be curried out in order to have our show produced. It proved quite challenging in the matter of having the production team organised more than I expected but eventually we managed to pull out a good show performing a fantastic team effort.
We planned the show to be in style of The One Show on BBC, with Paul and I as main presenters.
It would take half an hour and our special guest was Laura Barton. Feature reporters to be on the sofas to talk about their work would be Katie and Claire (Wine tasting feature), Justyna (£20 Food challenge), Thom (Keats Anniversary) and Jake (Christmas in Winchester feature).
15 minutes of the show would account of the VTs and other 15 interviews and chats in the studio. We planned to record it on Wednesday as soon as Laura Barton comes in (around 12), then finish of with nice intro edited in and polished any technical glitches before uploading onto youtube.
As I mentioned before the most difficult was part organisation of the studio and the gallery. I had to be a big part of the production process, setting up the studio (sofas, camera angles etc.) as there was not enough people in the production team to do so. The few that were there tried their best but there was just not enough man power to have it run smoothly and that effected in lack of rehearsals. However as you can see on the film we show no sign of stress and the ending effect came out to be quite successful.
Paul and I researched into Laura Barton's work to be prepared and knowledgeable and make the script reacher for our special guest. On Wednesday Tomek and Paul polished and completed the script while I was finishing of preparation of the studio.
At the end we were overwhelmed with Laura's feedback at the end and I spoke to her after recording the WINOL Life on Wednesday:
Part of the editors role is to know how we can put it on the page and look out on the legal side of the stories or features, and it is really looking up for some of us as the WINOL as some of us are growing into great professionals. It is hard to believe that it is one week before last till I finish working for Winol and it will certainly be a sad moment for me to end the project.
Other things that I decided to do this week was to turn two of my photoessays into features Wales Photographed Feature and Scotland Photographed Feature (you can also click here to go to another post with these two features: Wales and Scotleand Photographed Features).
Paul and I have planned to produce a studio based feature show, presenting our best packages and having a guest to comment on the pieces. This week's special guest: Laura Barton, feature writer for the Guardian
WINOL Life with Laura Barton, Part 1Most of my team members worked hard and delivered beautiful packages or redone the ones I requested.
We planned the show to be in style of The One Show on BBC, with Paul and I as main presenters.
It would take half an hour and our special guest was Laura Barton. Feature reporters to be on the sofas to talk about their work would be Katie and Claire (Wine tasting feature), Justyna (£20 Food challenge), Thom (Keats Anniversary) and Jake (Christmas in Winchester feature).
15 minutes of the show would account of the VTs and other 15 interviews and chats in the studio. We planned to record it on Wednesday as soon as Laura Barton comes in (around 12), then finish of with nice intro edited in and polished any technical glitches before uploading onto youtube.
As I mentioned before the most difficult was part organisation of the studio and the gallery. I had to be a big part of the production process, setting up the studio (sofas, camera angles etc.) as there was not enough people in the production team to do so. The few that were there tried their best but there was just not enough man power to have it run smoothly and that effected in lack of rehearsals. However as you can see on the film we show no sign of stress and the ending effect came out to be quite successful.
Paul and I researched into Laura Barton's work to be prepared and knowledgeable and make the script reacher for our special guest. On Wednesday Tomek and Paul polished and completed the script while I was finishing of preparation of the studio.
At the end we were overwhelmed with Laura's feedback at the end and I spoke to her after recording the WINOL Life on Wednesday:
Part of the editors role is to know how we can put it on the page and look out on the legal side of the stories or features, and it is really looking up for some of us as the WINOL as some of us are growing into great professionals. It is hard to believe that it is one week before last till I finish working for Winol and it will certainly be a sad moment for me to end the project.
Other things that I decided to do this week was to turn two of my photoessays into features Wales Photographed Feature and Scotland Photographed Feature (you can also click here to go to another post with these two features: Wales and Scotleand Photographed Features).
Going back to my weekly routine of Feature editor's job, Monday morning was not starting of well as not many members of my team was in. My concerns about commitment levels grew from the last few weeks. I spoke to Charlotte, managing editor at WINOL last week and said that I was going to have a chat with my whole group about the levels of involvement in my team and asked her to take part in the Monday's meeting. On the not so nice side of this week I had to give an unpleasant speech to my team regarding few points which were directed separately at different members of the team. The reason of me doing so was that I was trying to reming them that this is our chance to practice, learn and make mistakes and if we don't use it now there will be no more room for error or re-doing in the world of journalism. It is important that they realise that they do it for themselves not to impress me or our tutors, they have to realise that if they avoid doing work that will reflect in their lack of skill and knowledge, bad marks and eventually smaller chance to break through in the industry after finishing the degree.
The points are purely a constructive criticism that is meant to motivate some of the members of my team a little bit more and remind them that they are not letting themselves down but also the whole team. Winol is not only meant to develop individual's personal skills but teach working within a team as that will be mostly what we will be facing after leaving university. I already spoke to most of the members of the team that should only pick out the points of further improvements and the ones that were non present would understand that other points would be directed at them. So the individual points are directed at individual members if the group:
- absence on the de-briefs on Monday mornings
- missing out on days at winol - avoiding work
- lacking in bringing own ideas (most of the time I have to appoint them tasks and tell them ideas and how to do them)
- need to speed up with editing as the deadlines keep being extended
- when editing in two's or doing a film and article in twos try to have one person working on one thing and other on another thing to meet the deadline
- not all of the members come to the features meeting on which they are meant to 'sell' me their ideas, they text a brief description or not come at all which is not acceptable in the real world of journalism, there is no way the idea will be presented well through a brief text message for example 'oh I want to do this... do you like the idea?', no that is not good enough
- And finally, a reminder - do not upload onto youtube unless I have seen it and approved it!
Other points I made were reminding them on trying to get big names into their piece; keep a weekely log of what you do and learnt at winol for the critical reflection; communicate with Jason, our photographer to come with you and take pictures to your pieces.
The last reminder was also to have all the packages chosen for the Show completed and exported onto my hard drive - TUESDAY, the end of the day.
Features my team prepared features for the show for this week and continued working on the rest of the ideas that were planned for the following week. Prepared for this week's show:
1. Thomas Hobbs: John Keats 'To Autumn'
2. Whole team involved (edited by Katie and Claire) : Who's the Hostess with the Mostess?
3. My Students demo (can be viewed in my previous posts)
4. Jake Gable - Christmas in Winchester (requested to be redone after the show-awaiting new version)
My legal concern here and what I was aware of was using a lots of GVs and possibility of having under 16s in the film and so I made sure I went through the piece carefully looking out on above. And as I thought I found few moments that children were shown - I advised either not to use it in the package or to stretch the picture so that the children are not visible (not identified). Jake did well on getting rid them, he listened and made his GVs legally correct.
Other problem here was writing a voice over in a poetic style which I knew would be quite challenging but I was hoping for the best.
Eventually, unfortunately, I decided to cut this piece out of the show as there was a room for improvement in area of voice over and I advised to not do it in a poetic style but just normal informative voice over for the following week.
5. Student Finance- Eating for a week on £20 by Justina
Film that was already done and requested to be perfected. Justina did an excellent work on that and everyone was impressed.
UPDATE FROM THE FEATURES PROMISED LAST WEEK and NEW IDEAS FOR NEXT WEEK
1. Behind the scenes of feature making film, by Justyna – not completed
2. News feature article on a historic mansion that was going to be taken down, by Gareth from news - not completed
3. Student version of the come dine with me – Who is the Hostess with the Mostess - completed
4. Restaurant Review, places to eat out for students, by Claire and Katie - decided not to complete
5. Budget Cuts article- in depth analysis of the Browne’s review by Thomas Hobbs -not completed
6. Wine tasting show in London, gonzo style feature by Claire and Katie - completed
7. Richard Cheetam, Atacama race - to be completed for week 11
8. Katie and Claire are adding voice-overs on to their autumn fashion piece - completed (planned to be used in week 11 for when Maria Melano comes over)
9. Also Thom has transcribed his interview with bishop and I listened to the whole interview to check for accuracy and that Thom informed the bishop of the purposes of the interview. I also advised Thom that I would like to see the consent in writing via email from bishop’s site agreeing for publication of the transcribed text. - consent received - piece uploaded onto website
10. Anniversary of Keits poem which was significant for Winchester by Thom- completed
11. Thom is also planning to get Steve Bishalti (bbc sports ancor) to write a comment piece on strikes at NUJ. - not completed
12. Concert of Skinnyman (English rapper) - completed
13. Justina is redoing few parts of the £20 challenge - completed
14. Jake brought an idea of setting himself up a challenge of living with a baby-doll - not completed
NEW IDEAS:
15. Thom Hobbs:
- Akala concert review and a comment piece by Akala on Current Music Industry (Deadline Wednesday week 11)
- Feature Interview with Alistair Steward from ITV- to be done for Tuesday (for the Maria Melano show)
- Adrian Howks - aliens in Winchester? Comment piece (deadline - Wednesday week 11)
16. Jake:
- Winol's version of Apprentice - (idea sent by txt message only) - spiked- sports feature that is already being done by sports team - I spoke to the sports team and they said that they do not want to give away their own idea - they want to do it themselves - spiked for Jake (kept for sports)17. Katie and Claire: Christmas Party deresses-to be done for Tuesday the end of the day18* My idea to make a behind the scenes for Katie and Claire feature making - appointed Jake to do it as I spiked both of his (txt message) ideas- I advised him to finish it of by the end of this week including little promo introducing the fact that Maria Melano is meant to be in our next week's WINOL LIFE
19. Andy:
- Feature Interview with lecturer who run through Atacama desert- deadline Tuesday the end of the day- written piece - profile on the same lecture to go with the video
- short documentary - how were the police techniques changing across the student protests- fashion - suits20. Hanna (&Justina) Christmas Gifts on law budget21. Radical Fashion - Cara: text, Hanna & Justina : video
22. Room make over - student acomodation - Cara: text, Jake;video
23. Reading list challenge - Justina
Kayleigh also produced What's on for this week:
The legal concern of mine in this film was the question of consent from a guy that is skating behind Kayleigh, I noticed that while she was editing and made sure she was aware of that. She had the permission to film. However I was communicated to that the section on What's on belongs fully to Kayleigh and that she is editor herself so I should not be having that in control. I took it on board and spoke to Kayleigh about that.
On Thursday this week there was meant to be a decision made on the issue of the tuition fees in England, Maddie and I planned to go there in the morning to film and make another documentary. Even though we both managed to even to take our Law revision lecture on Monday instead of Thursday to be able to go to London unfortunately, Maddie found out she had to work on Thursday evening and I had a very little time to arrange another person go with me. Eventually, I didn't go as it would have been unsafe for me to go on my own especially with such a huge potential for the protests to go big. I was incredibly disappointed and felt that I failed myself in a way that I wasn't in the place of 'history making', on the other side it would have been extremely dangerous for me to cover it on mu own.
Next week's plans: WINOL LIFE with Maria MELANO, editor from the InStyle magazine.
The points are purely a constructive criticism that is meant to motivate some of the members of my team a little bit more and remind them that they are not letting themselves down but also the whole team. Winol is not only meant to develop individual's personal skills but teach working within a team as that will be mostly what we will be facing after leaving university. I already spoke to most of the members of the team that should only pick out the points of further improvements and the ones that were non present would understand that other points would be directed at them. So the individual points are directed at individual members if the group:
- absence on the de-briefs on Monday mornings
- missing out on days at winol - avoiding work
- lacking in bringing own ideas (most of the time I have to appoint them tasks and tell them ideas and how to do them)
- need to speed up with editing as the deadlines keep being extended
- when editing in two's or doing a film and article in twos try to have one person working on one thing and other on another thing to meet the deadline
- not all of the members come to the features meeting on which they are meant to 'sell' me their ideas, they text a brief description or not come at all which is not acceptable in the real world of journalism, there is no way the idea will be presented well through a brief text message for example 'oh I want to do this... do you like the idea?', no that is not good enough
- And finally, a reminder - do not upload onto youtube unless I have seen it and approved it!
Other points I made were reminding them on trying to get big names into their piece; keep a weekely log of what you do and learnt at winol for the critical reflection; communicate with Jason, our photographer to come with you and take pictures to your pieces.
The last reminder was also to have all the packages chosen for the Show completed and exported onto my hard drive - TUESDAY, the end of the day.
Features my team prepared features for the show for this week and continued working on the rest of the ideas that were planned for the following week. Prepared for this week's show:
1. Thomas Hobbs: John Keats 'To Autumn'
2. Whole team involved (edited by Katie and Claire) : Who's the Hostess with the Mostess?
3. My Students demo (can be viewed in my previous posts)
4. Jake Gable - Christmas in Winchester (requested to be redone after the show-awaiting new version)
My legal concern here and what I was aware of was using a lots of GVs and possibility of having under 16s in the film and so I made sure I went through the piece carefully looking out on above. And as I thought I found few moments that children were shown - I advised either not to use it in the package or to stretch the picture so that the children are not visible (not identified). Jake did well on getting rid them, he listened and made his GVs legally correct.
Other problem here was writing a voice over in a poetic style which I knew would be quite challenging but I was hoping for the best.
Eventually, unfortunately, I decided to cut this piece out of the show as there was a room for improvement in area of voice over and I advised to not do it in a poetic style but just normal informative voice over for the following week.
5. Student Finance- Eating for a week on £20 by Justina
Film that was already done and requested to be perfected. Justina did an excellent work on that and everyone was impressed.
UPDATE FROM THE FEATURES PROMISED LAST WEEK and NEW IDEAS FOR NEXT WEEK
1. Behind the scenes of feature making film, by Justyna – not completed
2. News feature article on a historic mansion that was going to be taken down, by Gareth from news - not completed
3. Student version of the come dine with me – Who is the Hostess with the Mostess - completed
4. Restaurant Review, places to eat out for students, by Claire and Katie - decided not to complete
5. Budget Cuts article- in depth analysis of the Browne’s review by Thomas Hobbs -not completed
6. Wine tasting show in London, gonzo style feature by Claire and Katie - completed
7. Richard Cheetam, Atacama race - to be completed for week 11
8. Katie and Claire are adding voice-overs on to their autumn fashion piece - completed (planned to be used in week 11 for when Maria Melano comes over)
9. Also Thom has transcribed his interview with bishop and I listened to the whole interview to check for accuracy and that Thom informed the bishop of the purposes of the interview. I also advised Thom that I would like to see the consent in writing via email from bishop’s site agreeing for publication of the transcribed text. - consent received - piece uploaded onto website
10. Anniversary of Keits poem which was significant for Winchester by Thom- completed
11. Thom is also planning to get Steve Bishalti (bbc sports ancor) to write a comment piece on strikes at NUJ. - not completed
12. Concert of Skinnyman (English rapper) - completed
13. Justina is redoing few parts of the £20 challenge - completed
14. Jake brought an idea of setting himself up a challenge of living with a baby-doll - not completed
NEW IDEAS:
15. Thom Hobbs:
- Akala concert review and a comment piece by Akala on Current Music Industry (Deadline Wednesday week 11)
- Feature Interview with Alistair Steward from ITV- to be done for Tuesday (for the Maria Melano show)
- Adrian Howks - aliens in Winchester? Comment piece (deadline - Wednesday week 11)
16. Jake:
- Winol's version of Apprentice - (idea sent by txt message only) - spiked- sports feature that is already being done by sports team - I spoke to the sports team and they said that they do not want to give away their own idea - they want to do it themselves - spiked for Jake (kept for sports)17. Katie and Claire: Christmas Party deresses-to be done for Tuesday the end of the day18* My idea to make a behind the scenes for Katie and Claire feature making - appointed Jake to do it as I spiked both of his (txt message) ideas- I advised him to finish it of by the end of this week including little promo introducing the fact that Maria Melano is meant to be in our next week's WINOL LIFE
19. Andy:
- Feature Interview with lecturer who run through Atacama desert- deadline Tuesday the end of the day- written piece - profile on the same lecture to go with the video
- short documentary - how were the police techniques changing across the student protests- fashion - suits20. Hanna (&Justina) Christmas Gifts on law budget21. Radical Fashion - Cara: text, Hanna & Justina : video
22. Room make over - student acomodation - Cara: text, Jake;video
23. Reading list challenge - Justina
Kayleigh also produced What's on for this week:
The legal concern of mine in this film was the question of consent from a guy that is skating behind Kayleigh, I noticed that while she was editing and made sure she was aware of that. She had the permission to film. However I was communicated to that the section on What's on belongs fully to Kayleigh and that she is editor herself so I should not be having that in control. I took it on board and spoke to Kayleigh about that.
On Thursday this week there was meant to be a decision made on the issue of the tuition fees in England, Maddie and I planned to go there in the morning to film and make another documentary. Even though we both managed to even to take our Law revision lecture on Monday instead of Thursday to be able to go to London unfortunately, Maddie found out she had to work on Thursday evening and I had a very little time to arrange another person go with me. Eventually, I didn't go as it would have been unsafe for me to go on my own especially with such a huge potential for the protests to go big. I was incredibly disappointed and felt that I failed myself in a way that I wasn't in the place of 'history making', on the other side it would have been extremely dangerous for me to cover it on mu own.
Next week's plans: WINOL LIFE with Maria MELANO, editor from the InStyle magazine.
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