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After Caroline Flack’s death, it’s time to hold the press to account

<span>Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

The death of Caroline Flack has led to calls for stricter press regulation (Flack’s death leads to anger at media and a search for who to blame, 22 February). The public outcry echoes the outrage seen leading up to the Leveson inquiry in 2011.

That independent, judge-led inquiry heard from hundreds of people who had experienced press intrusion and suffered illegal behaviour at the hands of news publishers, including phone hacking. It recommended the creation of a genuinely independent system of self-regulation to cover the print and online press.

However, that system doesn’t exist today. The majority of the press either belong to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) – a complaints body that is not truly independent – or belong to no regulator at all. Some news publishers belong to Impress, which has been assessed by us as providing effective, independent regulation and public protections.

Only the rich can readily afford to seek redress against news publishers. Legislation required to provide affordable access to justice – section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 – is on the statute books, but the government has not commenced it.

Section 40 would enable ordinary people to have their case heard if they believe they’ve been harmed by the press. It would also protect publishers from high-cost legal challenges and so help secure freedom of speech for reporters and publications.

The concerns that led to the hacking inquiry haven’t gone away, yet the government continues to delay implementation of the system agreed by parliament. It isn’t about censoring the press. It’s about making all news publishers accountable within a system of independent self-regulation.

Freedom of the press must also be balanced by the need to protect people and provide access to justice when they are wronged, as happens in other areas of business and society, such as utilities, broadcasting and telecoms, and as the government proposes for social media.
David Wolfe QC
Chair of the Press Recognition Panel

• Joan Smith is right to condemn the tabloid press for declaring “open season” on Caroline Flack, but she lets the Crown Prosecution Service off the hook far too easily (Caroline Flack is misogyny’s latest victim, Journal, 18 February).

As her piece notes, “too few cases of alleged domestic violence end in prosecutions”. However, it is usually women as victims who are let down by the CPS, or are intimidated into withdrawing their statements. In this case, the (male) alleged victim wanted no part in the case, and the person charged was a young woman who had a documented history of depression and, as Joan Smith acknowledges, was known to be in a “fragile emotional state”.

According to the Code for Prosecutors, in determining whether a prosecution is required in the public interest, the CPS are supposed to take into account “whether the suspect is, or was at the time of the offence, affected by any significant mental ... ill health”. They are also supposed to consider “the views expressed by the victim”, whether prosecution is proportionate to the likely outcome, and whether an out-of-court disposal was possible.

Caroline Flack had no previous convictions. It is difficult to see how the public interest test could be met such as to justify a show trial of a vulnerable young woman where the purported victim wanted no part of the prosecution and a repeat of the alleged offence was unlikely.
Nick Moss
London

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