The public interest
14. Professor Jon Silverman argued that there
are occasions where off-the-record briefings are in the public
interest:
There are briefings that are given, say, towards
the end of a trial in order to enable journalists to produce fully
rounded reports at the conclusion of the trial, and I regard that
as in the public interest for those sort of briefings to take
place. There are cases where the police know that information
is out there, that journalists have got hold of information which
the police feel would be very unhelpful to an ongoing operation
or other inquiries that they intend to make, and the off-the-record
briefing is actually intended to draw journalists into a kind
of circle and say, "Look, it would be extremely unhelpful
to publish this information at this stage for X, Y and Z reasons",
and, again, that may well be in the public interest.[12]
He cited as an example his coverage of Nazi war crimes
investigations in the 1990s for the BBC. The official police policy
was not to pass any information to journalists, so he was reliant
on off-the-record briefings to cover a story he believed to be
in the public interest given the large amounts of public money
being spent on the investigations. However, he added that good
journalists do not rely solely on off-the-record briefings for
stories, but seek other sources for corroboration.[13]
15. When asked if he had ever been given advance
notice of an arrest during his career as a journalist, Professor
Silverman stated:
The cases that I do have a lot of experience in are
cases of big drugs arrests in the late eighties and early nineties.
The police actually wanted the media to be there to reassure the
community that everything was being done properly and above board,
precisely to stop rumours getting out. There was a mutual interest
involved.[14]
16. Detective Superintendent Tony Cook has written
in Police Review that the practice can also be used to
avoid media misreporting:
We increasingly hold off the record (and sometimes
embargoed) briefings in order to help the media understand or
hold back information on some of the more complex issues that
face modern policing. This is generally done to avoid misreporting
due to lack of information and is especially important for issues
such as terrorism. The work carried out by the UK's new counter-terrorism
units and the legislation that officers working in these units
have to contend with can be extremely confusing for the police
and as a result, also for the public.[15]
17. Deputy Chief Constable Andy Trotter, speaking
on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told us:
We believe that, wherever possible, briefings should
be on-the-record, attributable, with an officer, who is clearly
identified, complying with the policy of the senior investigating
officer or whomsoever is in charge of the case. The only time
that confidential briefings, as we prefer to call them, should
happen is in cases like kidnap or where, for example, a breaking
story might have some impact on a current investigation or, as
was mentioned by Jon Silverman, perhaps in a pre-sentence briefing
in co-operation with the Crown Prosecution Service, all of which
is recorded.[16]
Frequency of the practice
18. The Director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti,
told us that the practice of off-the-record briefing is "commonplace":
The nature of the off-the-record briefing process
makes it difficult to measure in any sensible way, but it is my
understanding, and always has been over the years in my time as
a civil servant and then at Liberty, that this is a pretty commonplace
practice.[17]
19. However, Deputy Chief Constable Trotter,
while he did not dispute that Ms Chakrabarti was right to raise
concern about the practice, did not "recognise the scale
… I think, when you look at the police operations happening
every day up and down the country, that is not borne out by what
really happens".[18]
He also argued that leaks were not necessarily coming from the
police side, but from a range of sources including those close
to the subject.[19]
20. While we found it difficult
to establish the precise extent of the practice of off-the-record
briefings, the examples witnesses cited to us convince us that
it occurs too frequently. There is a limited set of circumstances
where it is in the public interest for police officers to provide
information to journalists about continuing investigations on
an off-the-record basis. However, we do not think it is ever acceptable
for officers to identify individual suspects to the media before
charge, as this has the potential to damage the investigation,
any subsequent trial and the reputation of suspects released without
charge. Police officers, as well as members of the Security Service,
Civil Service and the military should also exercise extreme caution
in speaking to the media during counter-terrorism operations,
so as not to compromise the investigation or damage community
relations.
1 ACPO Media Advisory Group, Guidance Notes,
October 2003, http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/magguidelines.pdf,
p 1 Back
2
Ev 16 Back
3
Q 5 Back
4
Q 6 Back
5
"Redknapp police raid was unlawful", BBC New Online,
23 May 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk Back
6
"Lord Levy complains of his theatrical arrest", The
Times, 13 July 2006, www.timesonline.co.uk Back
7
Ev 11 Back
8
ACPO Media Advisory Notes, Guidance Notes, October 2003,
p 5 Back
9
Liberty, Setting the Record Straight-the dangers of "off-the-record"
briefings to the media during police counter-terrorism operations,
May 2007, http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk, p 9 Back
10
Qq 3, 11 Back
11
Liberty, Setting the Record Straight-the dangers of "off-the-record"
briefings to the media during police counter-terrorism operations,
May 2007, http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk, pp 8-9 Back
12
Q 19 Back
13
Qq 22, 24-5 Back
14
Q 34 Back
15
Det Supt Tony Cook, "Reporting for duty", Police
Review, 25 April 2008, p 24 Back
16
Q 35 Back
17
Q 1 Back
18
Q 46 Back
19
Q 51 Back
