The Tribunal summarised that “a member of the public, like the jury, would not have access to witness statements or other documents from the trial bundle” because “the evidence in the trial is the evidence given before the jury and witnesses may give different evidence from that contained in their witness statement so it could be misleading for that witness statement to be made available to anyone other than the parties and the judge” (paragraph 29). A member of the public also would not have access to the jury bundle. The Tribunal also said “certain documentary evidence, which was before the jury but not read out verbatim (especially documents such as maps or photographs) may be released to the press if, for example, it would aid understanding of proceedings”. It went on to say that “[r]eporters may also ask to look at particular documents to check spellings of names or to ascertain details which they did not hear at the relevant moment. More usually this would involve a request for an opening note or other document the contents of which are effectively in the public domain” (paragraph 29).
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The Tribunal referred to the Crown Prosecution Service Protocol on “Publicity and the Criminal Justice System”. The appellant had drawn the Tribunal’s attention to the following excerpt, which he argues was ‘sufficiently wide to cover all documents that are referred to in open court and/or are contained in the jury bundle or other bundles used in court that contain those documents’
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The Tribunal referred to the Crown Prosecution Service Protocol on “Publicity and the Criminal Justice System”. The appellant had drawn the Tribunal’s attention to the following excerpt, which he argues was ‘sufficiently wide to cover all documents that are referred to in open court and/or are contained in the jury bundle or other bundles used in court that contain those documents’: