What happened to this trial? Ideas?

[JoyousPinkPeer]

A trial started at Manchester Crown Court last Tuesday and was reported upon by the national and local press regarding the charges and the prosecutions opening remarks. Unfortunately the local rag allowed members of the public to comment - a variety of supportive and very negative comments. Also comments on various facebook pages. The following day the local rag removed some of the comments and thereafter removed the whole article.
The court listing said it was on trial on Friday. There has been nothing since to say trial is over or any reports in the press. Nothing on the court listings.

Can anybody figure out what's happened?

no idea - any other clues?

Maybe the judge put a reporting ban on it.

Suspect so, but the absence of anything on the court listings is what has flummoxed me.

Is it this?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgenvr0ekno

If it's all over the papers and people are allowed to comment then trials often collapse as it's deemed unfair to have trial by media - juries sometimes make decisions by what they've read rather than the evidence they've heard.

The paper should not have allowed comments once charges were laid, never mind while the trial was on. That's pretty basic stuff.

Contempt laws in England and Wales desperately need reform but getting that process headspace in a crowded political environment is a tall order.

If it is indeed that case, then it looks as though the jury was discharged on the basis that prejudicial comments had been made in the media so no chance of a fair trial. Very silly of the paper to allow comments if so - will have resulted in a huge loss of public money and further delay and stress for the victims.

The MEN? Bloody hell, they should have known better

No it's not this trial. Thanks for asking though.

No, not MEN.

Oh good

A post has just popped up on lical rag reporting on the defendants response to the allegations. They've still allowed comments unbelievably.
Anyway I know trial is ongoing ... despite it being removed from online court listings.

Indeed, poor form. They are allowing public comment on their most recent post, which I think is more bizarre.

The victim is deceased, very sadly.

“Often collapse”? How do you know this?

I think the meaning is that media screw ups can screw up trials and have done so.

Where the behaviour is as egregious as suggested the Editor/Proprietor should be in the dock and on the hook for costs.

I’ve been a court reporter for 25 years and I’ve never seen a trial collapse because of comments on social media.

My paper doesn’t allow comments during the trial but I can see why some might be tempted to. Contempt laws are applied unfairly and are not fit for purpose.

Why should a paper not allow commenting when local FB sites and X are full of breaches of contempt law regarding the very same trials?

MN has many threads on ongoing trials and people are allowed to comment completely freely. MN has ten million unique users so it’s not a small website and a juror could quite easily see comments here.

The rules desperately need a rethink.

As for your trial OP I have no idea which one it was but I’ve had trials collapse for many reasons. The most common is that the jury hears something in court that they were not supposed to hear. Other reasons include jurors falling ill, the judge ruling that there is not enough evidence for a safe conviction. It could also be that the defendants have changed their plea but the judge has imposed a reporting restriction to protect the integrity of another trial.

I profoundly disagree with the previous poster re contempt.

Simply commenting on a case while it is in progress is not contempt. It only becomes contempt if you:

• express of view on the defendant's guilt or innocence
• refer to the previous convictions of anyone involved in the case (defendant, victim or witnesses)
• share any evidence that the judge has said cannot be made public
• reveal the identity of the victim of a sex crime
• reveal the identity of anyone involved in the case who is under 18
• reveal the identity of anyone who has been granted anonymity by the judge

This seems to me to be a reasonable set of restrictions. Some forums are pretty good at removing anything that oversteps the mark. But regardless, I don't buy the argument that, because we can't completely control the internet, we should allow a free for all where trials are decided by who has the best PR team.

No not this case

Any statement that can cause a substantial risk of serious prejudice can be deemed in contempt, not just those that fall under the six categories in your post. That’s why newspapers stick to reporting only information that a jury has already heard. Any extraneous information is normally not reported during a trial by the press.

The ‘substantial’ and ‘serious’ are, of course, open to interpretation but there are several open threads on MN right now that in my mind (I’m not a judge, obvs) easily cross into the serious risk category.

All very bizarre. Case was reported on in the press late yesterday but was not on the court listing and is not on today's court listing.
I'll just keep my eye on the press for it now. Looks like court listing is incorrect.