Crime reporting has become so lurid that it may even threaten the likelihood of a fair trial, writes Carol Coulter.
THE DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions (DPP) asked the Supreme Court last week to jail a newspaper editor for contempt of court. By coincidence, a month ago the same court, in relation to a different matter, urged the DPP to be proactive when it came to ensuring that the media did not prejudice a criminal trial by the kind of coverage it gave to allegations against the accused.
This follows a gradual shift in the way the media treats crime generally and certain criminal trials in particular. As newspaper editors have frankly admitted on numerous occasions, crime sells newspapers. However, in the competition for sales, crime reporting has become more lurid, to the extent that it threatens to impact on the criminal justice system itself.
In the process, the impression has been created that the incidence of crime has greatly increased over the past decade or so.
In fact, with the very significant exception of murder and manslaughter, the incidence of indictable crime has been relatively stable.
In 2001, Ian and Eoin O'Sullivan wrote a pamphlet on the politics of crime in Ireland. They pointed out that in 1997, when 86 per cent of those surveyed said in an Irish Timesopinion poll that crime was increasing, the official figure had actually dropped by over 10,000 indictable crimes, a reduction of 10 per cent over the previous three years. They pointed out that the change in opinion followed "increasingly aggressive" reporting of crime in the media.
It also followed some high-profile crimes, notably the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe in June 1996 and of journalist Veronica Guerin two weeks later, which prompted a hardening in political attitudes, and a change in the nature of the debate, both reflected in and driven by the media.
The media's fascination with crime means some politicians see it as a useful means of advancing their own careers by grabbing headlines. The problem is that most media do not facilitate measured discussion of complex issues. Headlines must be limited to a small number of words. A television news report can rarely be longer than 90 seconds.
Images, either on television or in photographs, can have more impact than words. Therefore, the treatment of issues involved is usually oversimplified and often just plain wrong, presenting the public with sound-bite problems and sound-bite solutions that do not necessarily correspond to reality.
In the last general election, politicians attempted to out-do each other in their rhetoric on crime, leading - for instance - to the ludicrous Fine Gael promise: "No bail for criminals".
Obviously, no one had explained to Fine Gael that bail is granted to people who have not yet been tried for a crime and are therefore legally innocent, not criminals. Some people charged with crimes have, of course, previously been convicted of other offences, and the law provides for them being denied bail if considered likely to commit another crime. But that is too complex for an election poster or a headline to encapsulate.
Another area where the approach has changed is where sections of the media see themselves as assisting in solving crime. The suspected perpetrator is targeted and his or her guilt is either strongly hinted at or even stated, either in relation to alleged gangland crime in general or to a specific crime. This is particularly so in the case of apparently domestic offences where the victim is a young, preferably photogenic, woman.
Gardaí can be complicit in this process, leaking details of their suspicions to selected journalists. Campaigns are run within some media against these individuals despite the risk that public opinion - and therefore the jury pool - could be permanently tainted, thus putting in question the likelihood of a fair trial.
This issue was alluded to recently in a trenchant judgment by Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman in a case where one of the issues was whether the accused, Brian Rattigan, could receive a fair trial in the light of media coverage. This coverage is the subject of contempt proceedings that will be heard early next year.
Mr Justice Hardiman described in considerable detail how slanted such reporting can be and stated very clearly that the State, under its Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, must inhibit such publications "which are inconsistent with a fair trial".
He also quoted with approval a statement of the then attorney general, when in 1988 he refused to extradite Fr Patrick Ryan to the UK to face terrorist charges. The then attorney general was John Murray, later appointed to the European Court of Justice and who is now Chief Justice.
In refusing the extradition request at that time, he said: "The material in questions consists of references to Patrick Ryan which have appeared in newspapers, particularly newspapers with a large circulation and on radio and television, over a protracted period. They consisted, inter alia, of attacks on Patrick Ryan's general character, often expressed in intemperate language and frequently in the form of extravagantly worded headlines, and also assertions of his guilt of the offences comprised in the warrants - and, indeed, assertions of his guilt of other offences in respect of which no charges have been brought."
One might wonder what has changed in the past 20 years to lessen public concern for fair procedure and the right to a fair trial. The Attorney General's decision two decades ago took place in a very different context - where people were aware of a number of grave miscarriages of justice in the UK concerning Irish people. Domestic public opinion, and increasingly in the UK, had come to realise that the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven, groups of people who had served lengthy sentences for involvement in bombing campaigns in the early 1970s, had been wrongfully convicted in an atmosphere of hysteria to which the British media had contributed.
It is unlikely that there would be a similar decision from an Attorney General today because of the existence of the European Arrest Warrant, where there is a strong emphasis on mutual trust between states and their judicial institutions and case-law underlining this trust.
In parallel with the demonisation of certain accused people, there is also a new focus on certain victims. In the aftermath of having suffered an indescribable loss, such victims are repeatedly photographed and interviewed in print and broadcast media, inevitably facing the question, "And how do you feel?"
They are asked also for their views on the criminal justice system and how well, or badly, they feel it has served them. This approach feeds the dangerous perception that the criminal justice system is a contest between criminals and their victims. It is not. It is, or it should be, the system whereby society ensures that rules of behaviour which are collectively arrived at through a democratic process, however flawed that may be, are observed. Transgression is an offence against society and society should punish it according to rules which ensure that this is done fairly and impartially.
This is not to say that being the victim of a crime, or losing a loved one in an act of senseless violence, is not traumatic beyond description and that victims should not expect compassion and support from society, including dedicated support from those working in the criminal justice system. But compassion and support should not be confused with the granting of a public platform for what can only be raw anger and grief.
Indeed it is an open question how truly helpful it is to a victim to become a media celebrity through such misfortune.
The phenomenon has reached such a level that victim-related discourse is now driving much criminal justice policy. At the announcement of a number of criminal justice initiatives last week, many of which have nothing to do with help for victims of crime, the new Minister for Justice said that it all amounted to a new "initiative" for such victims.
Support for the victims of crime should be decoupled from necessary reform of the criminal justice system, which must be debated on its merits - a point championed by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties in its recent report on victims' rights.
And the media should not wait for the courts to issue instructions on how crime should be reported. Perhaps through the new Press Council, the media should have a thorough look at its practices before they contribute to the kind of miscarriage of justice seen in the UK in the 1970s and in this jurisdiction in the relatively recent past. Remember Nora Wall, anyone?
• Carol Coulter is Legal Affairs Editor