The UK Supreme Court rejected the appeal by the publisher of the Daily Mirror of last year’s decision that the newspaper was in contempt of court because of its reports on Christopher Jefferies, the Guardian reported.
Jefferies is the former landlord of Joanna Yeates, a woman found murdered in late 2010. He was arrested for questioning in her murder but later cleared, and another man was found guilty of her murder. But the newspaper coverage of Jefferies prompted much legal action. Jefferies successfully sued eight UK newspapers, including the Mirror, for libel this past summer.
At the time, the Mirror and the Sun were also both fined for contempt of court in their reporting on the Yeates case. In this most recent ruling, the Supreme Court agreed that “this was a very clear case of contempt of court.”
The Mirror was also accused last year of contempt of court in its reporting on Levi Bellfield, who was convicted of the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Milly Dowler. As we have previously written, Bellfield was also charged in the attempted kidnapping of another person, Rachael Cowles, but the jury had to be dismissed because of the media covearge.
We wrote to the UK Attorney General Dominic Grieve’s office asking about the latest status of the possible charges of contempt of court against the Mirror in its Levi Bellfield coverage. A spokesperson for Grieve’s office, Russell Hayes, told us that the full hearing in that case is scheduled for June 13.
Hat Tip: Editor & Publisher