20 March 2003 – It has taken almost a year, but the Press Complaints Commission has finally agreed to modify its Code provisions on payment to witnesses in criminal trials. It would be churlish not to welcome the changes, which, like most of the Code provisions, provide excellent guidelines for editors on the way in which they should behave. The problem is that they remain no more than guidelines: there are no sanctions for offenders, other than the usual slap on the wrist, and the defence of “demonstrable public interest” is retained for two of the three paragraphs in the new clause.

For the record, this is the new Clause 16 of the Code:
16. Witness payments in criminal trials
i. No payment or offer of payment to a witness – or any person who may
reasonably be expected to be called as a witness – should be made in any case once proceedings are active as defined by the Contempt of Court Act 1981. This prohibition lasts until the suspect has been freed unconditionally by police without charge or bail or the proceedings are otherwise discontinued; or has entered a guilty plea to the court; or, in the event of a not guilty plea, the court has announced its verdict.

ii. Where proceedings are not yet active but are likely and foreseeable, editors must not make or offer payment to any person who may reasonably be expected to be called as a witness, unless the information concerned ought demonstrably to be published in the public interest and there is an over-riding need to make or promise payment for this to be done; and all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure no financial dealings influence the evidence those witnesses give. In no circumstances should such payment be conditional on the outcome of a trial.

iii. Any payment or offer of payment made to a person later cited to give evidence in proceedings must be disclosed to the prosecution and defence.  The witness must be advised of this requirement.

According to the chairman of the Code Committee, Les Hinton: “This is a timely reminder of the strength of self-regulation over any form of legal control.”

Well, perhaps. In the PressWise view it is more a timely reminder that the PCC only acts to strengthen its Code when under direct threat of legislation. The fact that it has taken six months of negotiation with the Lord Chancellor’s department to arrive at the new wording is demonstration of the fact that, like Saddam Hussein, the PCC only makes concessions when the tanks are parked on its lawn.

Bill Norris
Associate Director

(Bulletin No 80)