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In the case of HM Advocate v Scottish Daily Record and Sunday
Mail Limited (1986) in the High Court of Justiciary on 20 May
1997 the publishers and editors of the Sun and Daily Record
were respectively fined £5,000 and £250, each.
One of the more interesting facts of the case, however, was
the submission put forward in relation to the Geoffrey Knight’s
ruling. The rationale in the Knights case appeared to be that
Knights had already been the subject of some rather unfavourable
newspaper reports.
He had long been referred to as having a dubious criminal past
and had recently been involved in a libel case at the instance
of his girlfriend which had brought various matters of his character
to the public domain.
In light of this the Court felt that although
there was a measure of exaggeration and sensationalism of the
incident in the tabloid reports these did not create a greater
risk than already existed.
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The distinction was drawn between the need in contempt proceedings
to look at each publication separately and the need in the trial
to look at the prejudice facing the accused by the totality
of the publication.
It had been suggested by some commentators that one of the ironies
of the Knights judgment is that if you are a known rogue with
a history of misdemeanours behind you which the press have brought
to the attention of the public then you have more of a chance
of success in your plea for stay or abandonment of proceedings
than the first time offender of whom nobody had heard.
In the
Scottish case the accused certainly fell into a similar category
to Knights in that his past and previous convictions had been
widely reported.
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The Court was told ‘The
Daily Record took the view that, given the nature of the accused
public persona, given the widespread knowledge of his identity
through photographs, both in newspapers and on television,
of his whereabouts and his previous criminal and other activities,
any risk created by the publication of an article which repeated
these elements would not be sufficiently substantial to result
in contempt’.
The basis on which the article had been passed for publication
was the judgement in the Knights case. The Scottish courts
refused to accept that Knights was part of Scots law.
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