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Newspapers fined £15,000 each for contempt over online photos

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

July 19, 2011 | 2 min read

The Sun and the Daily Mail have been fined for contempt over publishing pictures of a murder trial defendant holding a pistol online.

In March the newspapers became the first to be found guilty for online contempt of court when they accidentally published uncropped or insufficiently cropped photos of defendant Ryan Ward, who was accused of murdering car mechanic Craig Wass by hitting him with a brick. Ward was later convicted of the crime.

Attorney General Dominic Grieve QC took action on the basis that the papers had breached the strict liability rule of the 1981 Contempt of Court Act, which says that publishing an article or picture which could prejudice a trial may be contempt, even though there is no actual "intent" to interfere with the course of justice.

Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Owen ruled that whilst no juror saw the offending image, the contempt risk was created by an avoidable mistake.

Today, they decided that £15,000 per publication was an ‘appropriate penalty’, as well as paying the Attorney General's £28,117 costs.

Mail Online now require their staff to have all articles, photos and captions regarding crime and the courts to be checked by a lawyer before publication. News Group Newspapers now make sure that all staff working on the online edition of The Sun use pictures only as they appeared in the newspaper.

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