§ Mr. Aitkenasked the Attorney-General if, in the light of the trial judge's comments in R v Freud, he will make a statement on his policy towards the prosecution of reporters who participate in criminal activities for journalistic purposes.
§ The Attorney-GeneralThe case of Rv Freud was concluded at Croydon Crown court on 2 September 1983. The accused was convicted of offences of unlawfully supplying controlled drugs contrary to section 4 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to possession of a controlled drug contrary to section 5 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. In that case the court accepted that the offences were initiated or encouraged by a journalist working for a Sunday newspaper which subsequently carried a full report on its front page of that journalist's role in exposing the activities of the accused. The newspaper had prior to the publication of its article made its dossier available to the police, and the journalist had provided a witness statement with a view to the prosecution of the accused.
I have been unable to comment upon this case until now as a number of similar prosecutions were pending against 261W other accused who had been exposed in a similar manner by journalists of the same newspaper. These cases have now been concluded.
The Director of Public Prosecutions and I have given anxious consideration to the implications of this form of investigative journalism. In our view it would be open to a court to find that a journalist acting in this way had committed criminal offences himself in relation to his incitement of the accused to supply him with controlled drugs and in relation to his subsequent possession of them. While in the case of R v Freud and in the subsequent prosecutions the journalists concerned were treated as witnesses, I am bound to say that in the future I cannot condone such contraventions of the law. I have notified the newspaper concerned in these cases of my view but now wish to make it clear for the benefit of other newspapers considering a similar course of action that when a journalist who embarks or is a party to others embarking on a course of action which necessarily involves them in the commission of criminal offences, the evidence relating to their actions will be assessed as the basis for the possible institution of criminal proceedings on precisely the same principles as the evidence against any other person not involved in journalistic activities.