How’s this for Kafka-esque? The BBC were planning to broadcast a docu-drama, based on interviews from the Guardian/LSE “Reading the Riots” project, yesterday. But the programme was pulled at the last minute after a court order.
What grounds were given? Aha, that would be telling. The Guardian reports:
For legal reasons, the Guardian cannot name the judge who made the ruling, the court in which he is sitting or the case he is presiding over. However, it is understood that lawyers for the BBC strongly object to his ruling, the nature of which is believed to be highly unusual.
So, to reprise – an anonymous judge, in an anonymous court, made a ruling censoring this film based on arguments you can’t be told about.
“Highly unusual”, indeed. Now, if we could just get a footballer to sleep with someone involved, perhaps people might care about this.
Update 19/07/2012 15:06:
The reason the judge prevented the broadcast of the programme, it seems, is because he felt it “echoed” arguments put before the jury.
[Mr Justice Flaux] used an unusual power under section 45 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, which in some circumstances grants crown court judges the same powers as those used by the high court, to prevent the film from being broadcast…He also issued a second order, under section 4 (2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, which barred media organisations from reporting the injunction.
David Allen Green tweets:
In my opinion, the Birmingham judge erred and made a worryingly illiberal and flatly misconceived order against BBC.#UKriots
— David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) July 19, 2012
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