APPENDIX 69
Memorandum submitted by the London College
of Printing
Nigel Dacre has asked me to respond of behalf
of the Journalism Department at the London College of Printing.
1. The PCC's Code of Conduct is an integral
part of Law Modules delivered across the five undergraduate and
post-graduate courses in journalism at the London College of Printing.
Indeed, a core question in the Law Examination,
which students must pass to progress, involves issues of privacy
and requires a working knowledge of the Code, particularly in
relation to where "invasions" are condoned in the public
interest.
Students are marked in accordance not only with
their knowledge of the Code but also in terms of their up-to-date
knowledge of the putative developments in English "case"
law of the relevant sections of the Human Rights Act.
In this way, students are encouraged to be mindful
that while the Code may be admitted in legal cases, it is not
a defence in itself against any possible future legal developments
which could act to establish a new privacy law in the English
legislative process. We urge students, soon to be practitioners,
to keep a watchful eye.
2. While the apparently conflicting Articles
8 and 10 of the Act do not strike anyone as being particularly
useful, either from a claimaint's or defendant's point of view,
controversy and debate in lecturers and seminars with students
at the LCP on the current PCC Code centres on three areas. It
might be useful for you to hear these:
— As sexual mores change, it becomes
harder to define sexual activity which genuinely constitutes "the
public being misled". It may become increasingly difficult
to show in the modern world that philandering or infidelity, purchased
or freely consented to, by either partner in a marriage or relationship
constitutes this. Certainly, as far as the public is concerned,
there is anecdotal evidence that such claims or articles by newspapers
are regarded as disingenuous circulation-boosters, aided and abetted
by an out-of-date and prudish Code.
— Similarly with the drugs, particularly
in the light of the Government's recent decriminalisation of cannabis,
it may again become increasingly untenable to hold that this is
a criminal offence, which under the Code, needs to be "exposed"
.
— Entrapment to secure a story runs
considerable risks of undermining the Code, in the same way it
has done in some notable high-profile criminal cases. The Dalaglio
story is a case in point, often cited by students, where a glib
"admission" of prior adolescent drug use made to a prospective
sponsor, nearly destroyed an otherwise brilliant sporting career.
I hope some of this is useful.
10 February 2003
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