{"id":5630,"date":"2018-03-07T09:27:01","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T09:27:01","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-02-18T01:08:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T01:08:40","slug":"venables-and-thompson-v-news-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lawteacher.net\/cases\/venables-and-thompson-v-news-group.php","title":{"rendered":"Venables and Thompson v News Group Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Venables &#038; Thompson v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2001] EWHC 32<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Perpetual injunction granted to protect the identities of two notorious murderers.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Facts<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The claimants were notorious murderers who were convicted at the age of 11. Injunctions which restricted the information which the media could publish about them came to an end when they reached 18. They sought further injunctions, under the inherent jurisdiction of the court, which would prevent publication of information regarding their appearance, whereabouts and new identities upon release.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Issue<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The claimants alleged that there were at a real risk of revenge attacks and the Court should therefore exercise its inherent jurisdiction to grant an injunction restraining publication against the world. Further, any concerns about interference with freedom expression should be considered in light of the evidence of murder threats against the claimants. The claimants relied upon the positive obligations established under <strong>Article 2 European Convention on Human Rights<\/strong> which imposes a positive obligation to protect individuals against violation of Convention rights by another private individual. The defendants argued that it was inappropriate to exercise the court\u2019s inherent jurisdiction to create ad hoc exceptions from the right to freedom of expression.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Held<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The claimants\u2019 application was granted. They were uniquely notorious individuals and were at an ongoing risk of serious physical harm. Their <strong>Article 2 <\/strong>rights demanded protection which could be provided by an extension of the law of confidence. The Court was therefore required to exercise its inherent jurisdiction to widen the scope of the protection of confidential information, even to the extent of placing restrictions on the freedom of expression of the press. Nevertheless, any restriction on the right of the press to publish information had to be given a narrow interpretation in line with <strong>Article 10(2) ECHR.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>282 words<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A case summary for LawTeacher.net about Venables and Thompson v News Group Newspapers, regarding a perpetual injunction granted to protect the identities of two notorious murderers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85],"class_list":["post-5630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cases","tag-uk-law"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v26.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Venables and Thompson v News Group Newspapers | 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