Month: January 2016

24.01.16

Breach of Privacy: Court of Appeal upholds damages award for breach of children’s privacy

On 20 November 2015 in Weller and others v Associated Newspapers Limited [2015] EWCA Civ 1176 the Court of Appeal upheld a decision of the High Court and found that Associated Newspapers (the publishers of MailOnline) had infringed the privacy of three of the musician Paul Weller’s children by publishing un-pixelated photographs of them out shopping in…

£25,000 damages awarded in sexting claim

In ABC v West Heath 2000 Ltd & Anor [2015] EWHC 2687 (QB) the High Court awarded damages to the Claimant who, as a 16 year old schoolgirl, had been encouraged to send explicit photographs of herself to her teacher.  18 text messages were exchanged between the pupil and her teacher over the course of a year, with 20 photographs…

15.01.16

Sexual offence allegations – rape victim cross-examination

In Andrade [2015] EWCA 1722 the Court of Appeal had to consider the refusal by a judge to permit cross-examination of a complainant in a rape case about a prior incident of consensual sexual intercourse with the appellant. The cross-examination of complainants in sexual offences is precluded without leave of the court by section 41…

8.01.16

Disclosure and abuse of process in the context of serious fraud litigation and other criminal cases

The recent Court of Appeal case of R & Others [2015] EWCA 1941 examined the relationship between prosecution failures in disclosure and abuse of process. The Court, presided over by Sir Brian Leveson, examined the proper approach to disclosure in the context of those large cases (in particular serious fraud) where huge amounts of data…