Altering history

[PostmanPatricia]

What do we think of this?

Mick Philpott, the Telegraph told us in 2006:
<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120826113856/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1534303/Jobless-and-shameless.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20120826113856/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1534303/Jobless-and-shameless.html

"in 1978 was convicted of attempted murder after stabbing a teenager 11 times"

At some point this was expunged from the record, as it's no longer there:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1534303/Jobless-and-shameless.html

Apparently the jury in his trial were not told of this fact, although it was revealed in sentencing.

Is it possible/sensible to remove the seemingly indelible at-your-fingertips record created by Google from history, and try people as if we were still living in a pre-internet world, when everyone came into court as an unknown quantity.

I'm not quite clear what you're asking. Are you asking whether or not the internet should be edited in order to guarantee a fair trial?

Historically, people were judged by a jury of their peers who would have had some background knowledge of the defendant given that they lived in the same community. So even though it was not permitted to outline prior convictions it would have been reasonable to assume that the defendant was not an 'unknown quantity'. I think the freedom of information on the internet simply means we have come full circle and it doesn't necessarily prejudice a fair trial.

juries are not told of any previous 'record', and are not supposed to google the defendant.

changing an article in the Telegraph doesn't change history or the rest of the internet. Possibly the paper did this to try to keep the previous offence quiet in case someone did google it.

Possibly the paper did this to try to keep the previous offence quiet

Yes, but why ?

Interestingly the original article was <a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120826113856/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1534303/Jobless-and-shameless.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">still there on 26 August 2012.