CyberLaw Blog

Archive for June 16th, 2009

NightJack blogger Richard Horton gave tips on beating the police – Times Online: From Times Online
June 16, 2009

NightJack blogger Richard Horton gave tips on beating the police.

Patrick Foster, Media Correspondent

The policeman who failed to secure an injunction to prevent The Times revealing his identity had used his anonymous blog to offer advice on how to undermine police investigations as well as revealing confidential information about his cases.

Richard Horton, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, began the NightJack blog in February last year.

At one stage he attracted nearly 500,000 readers a week with his pithy observations of life on the front line of policing. He was awarded an Orwell Prize for political writing in April this year.

The award judges were not aware that he was revealing confidential details about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions.

The detective has now deleted the website and received a written warning for misconduct for the fact that he was writing a blog, the success of which has led him to receive numerous offers to publish a book. His superiors are aware of the allegations that he was also revealing confidential information.

Some of the best-read sections of the blog were anecdotes about cases on which Mr Horton has worked. The people and the locations in the cases were anonymised, and some details subtly changed, but could easily traced back to real-life prosecutions.

One entry described the author investigating the rape of “Melissa”, a 14-year-old girl who was plied with alcohol and then raped in a hotel room. Mr Horton wrote that the offender had an Asian name, had hepatitis, and assaulted the girl at a seaside hotel, while filming it on his mobile phone.

A month earlier Ajmal Mohammad received an indefinite sentence at Preston Crown Court for raping a drunk teenager in a Blackpool hotel room. The court heard that he was infected with hepatitis C, and had filmed the attack on his phone.

Writing on the blog, Mr Horton revealed information that could have influenced the case, such as his suspicions that a key witness had misled police about her knowledge of the sex attack.

Another entry described an investigation against “David” a “local politician . . . with a seat on the council” who was found to have child abuse pictures on his computer. The blog said that “David” received a non-custodial sentence after a guilty plea.

In 2003 Bill Chadwick, a Preston councillor, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and was fined £1,000. But on the blog Mr Horton also revealed confidential details of other serious allegations against Mr Chadwick, which the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to pursue.

Other cases described on the blog can also be traced back to genuine prosecutions. In another entry entitled “A Survival Guide For Decent Folk”, Mr Horton offered advice to people who found themselves the subject of a police investigation.

His advice was to “complain about every officer… [and] show no respect to the legal system or anybody working in it”. Other observations included: “All you are trying to do by trying to explain is digging yourself further in. We call that a significant statement and we love it.”

When first confronted by The Times, Mr Horton refused to confirm or deny that he was the blog’s author, before trying to gain an injunction in the High Court preventing his name from being made public.

Lancashire Constabulary launched an investigation after being told that Mr Horton was the author.

A spokesman said: “The commentary in the blog is indeed the work of a serving Lancashire detective and clearly the views and opinions expressed are those of the author himself and not those of the wider Constabulary.

“We have conducted a full internal investigation and the officer accepts that parts of his public commentary have fallen short of the standards of professional behaviour we expect of our police officers.

“He has been spoken to regarding his professional behaviour and, in line with disciplinary procedures, has been issued with a written warning.”

Analysis: bloggers can no longer be sure on anonymity – Times Online: June 16, 2009

Analysis: bloggers can no longer be sure on anonymity
Frances Gibb, Legal Editor

Thousands of bloggers churn out opinions daily — secure in the protection afforded to them by the cloak of anonymity.

From today, however, they can no longer be sure that their identity can be kept secret, after a landmark ruling by Mr Justice Eady.

The judge, who is known for establishing case law with his judgments on privacy, has struck a blow in favour of openness, ruling that blogging is “essentially a public rather than a private activity”. In the first case of its kind, Mr Justice Eady ruled that a serving police officer could not have an injunction to stop The Times identifying him as the author of the NightJack blog.

The judge applied a two-fold test that is now established in privacy cases: first, whether the police officer had a reasonable expectation of privacy (in this case over his identity); and if so, whether that right to privacy was overridden by public interest in disclosure of his name.

The police officer failed on both grounds. Just because he wished to remain anonymous, the judge said, did not mean that he had a reasonable expectation to remain anonymous; nor that The Times was under an legally enforceable duty to protect his identity.

Key to the judge’s decision was the unmasking of the News of the World undercover journalist, Mazher Mahmood, when the MP George Galloway published a picture of him on the internet in his guise as “fake sheikh”.

Mr Justice Eady was persuaded by the judge’s reasoning in that case in 2006 that a journalist who writes under a pseudonym as part of his undercover work had no reasonable expectation of privacy over his identity.

Here, the police officer was not a journalist, Mr Justice Eady said, but the function he performed via his blog was similar.

He added that people who “wish to hold forth” to the public often took steps to disguise their authorship. But it was a “significantly further step” to argue that if people could deduce their identity, they should be restrained in law from revealing it.

The judge then goes on to say that even if the officer had won the argument for a reasonable expectation of privacy, he would lose on public interest grounds.

He was a serving police constable and his work mostly dealt with police work and social and political issues relating to the police and administration of justice, on which he expresses “strong opinions”, including some on subjects of political controversy.

One reason he was keen to preserve his anonymity was fear of disciplinary action if he were exposed.
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Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity: Thousands of bloggers who operate behind the cloak of anonymity have no right to keep their identities secret, the High Court ruled today

In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of a blog called NightJack.

The officer, Richard Horton, 45, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name.

In April Mr Horton was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing, but the judges were not aware that he was revealing confidential details about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions.

His blog, which gave a behind-the-scenes insight into frontline policing, included strong views on social and political issues, including matters of “public controversy,” the judge said.

The officer also criticised and ridiculed “a number of senior politicians” and advised members of the public under police investigation to “complain about every officer . . . show no respect to the legal system or anybody working in it.”

Mr Horton has now deleted his website and received a written warning from his force.

He has received several offers to publish a book after using the success of the blog to attract a literary agent.

Some of the blog’s best-read sections, which on occasion attracted nearly half a million readers a week, were anecdotes about the cases on which Mr Horton had worked.

The people and places were anonymised and some details changed but they could be traced back to the prosecutions.

In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr Horton had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”.

Coming down in favour of freedom of expression, the judge also said that even if the blogger could have claimed he had a right to anonymity, the judge would have ruled against him on public interest grounds.
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Millions face telephone tax under Government’s broadband plans for internet: A tax on phone lines could be introduced in an effort to try and extend the reach of super-fast broadband into the countryside.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

Iran election: state moves to end ‘Facebook revolution’: “The Iranian government is mounting a campaign to disrupt independent media organisations and websites that air doubts about the validity of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the nation’s president, according to various sources.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)