A legal challenge has been launched against the governor of Wakefield prison and the Ministry of Justice in relation to the media ban imposed on Jeremy Bamber. As reported earlier in the year, the Guardian newspaper has also been looking at challenging the restrictions which came in into place following investigations by the paper’s Simon Hattenstone and Heidi Blake writing for the New Yorker.
The claim was issued last month (the Justice Gap doesn’t report in August) and challenges ‘a series of decisions taken by the prisoner authorities, which restrict Mr. Bamber’s ability to communicate with journalists and with members of his campaign team and long-standing supporters closing’.
According to Bamber’s solicitor, Mark Newby, the restrictions of a risen at ‘a significant moment’. ‘Mr. Bamber has a live application before the Criminal Cases Review Commission – a submission which has been informed by significant investigate journalism. The ability of a person maintaining their innocence to correspond with responsible journalists about the safety of a conviction raises questions of wider public importance that extend beyond this case.’
‘Out of respect for the process, we don’t propose to discuss the detail of the challenge while the question of permission is before the court,’ Newby said. ‘We will say more at the appropriate time.’ The solicitor has instructed Tim Owen KC and Rosalind Comyn of Matrix Chambers
Newby had previously told the Justice Gap that the right of a prisoner who maintains his innocence to speak to journalists about a possible miscarriage of justice ‘has been settled law since the House of Lords’ decision in Ex parte Simms on July 8, 1999, and is protected by Article 10 of the European Convention’. ‘Any restriction on a prisoner’s communications must be necessary, proportionate and tailored to the individual case; the prison service’s own policy expressly permits media contact where the interests of justice require it. A blanket ban of the kind imposed by HMP Wakefield meets none of those requirements,’ he said. ‘In a case in which fresh material is actively being examined, the prison’s role is to facilitate scrutiny of the conviction, not to suppress it. The restriction is unlawful, and will be challenged.’
