Christopher Jefferies

¶Introduction

¶4.1 Joanna Yeates was the tenant of Christopher Jefferies who owned a number of flats in the

Clifton area of Bristol. Mr Jefferies is a retired English teacher, having enjoyed a long and distinguished career at Clifton College between 1967 and 2001. On 19 December 2010 Ms Yeates' partner, who had been away for the weekend, reported her as missing to the police. On Christmas Day her body was found at the edge of a quarry three miles away; she had been strangled to death. The Avon and Somerset Constabulary opened a large-scale murder investigation and press interest in the story was, understandably, massive.

¶4.2 Unsurprisingly, given that he was the victim's landlord, Mr Jefferies was invited to assist the

police with their inquiries, and he voluntarily provided two witness statements. Totally out of the blue as far as he was concerned, at about 7am on 30 December 2010 Mr Jefferies was arrested by officers of Avon and Somerset Constabulary and then taken into custody for questioning. This lasted for three days, whereupon Mr Jefferies was released on police bail. On 22 January 2011 Vincent Tabak was arrested on suspicion of murder, and he was formally charged the following day. For reasons which it is unnecessary to address here, Mr Jefferies' bail conditions were not formally lifted until 4 March 2011. Tabak pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ms Yeates on 5 May and, as is well known, he was convicted of Ms Yeates' murder on 28 October 2011.

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¶Press reporting while Christopher Jefferies was in custody 4.3 From the moment he was arrested on 30 December 2010, any publication in relation to

Mr Jefferies was subject to the 'strict liability rule' set out in section 2(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981: in other words, it would be a contempt of court for any publication to create a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question (commenced by the fact of the arrest) would be seriously impeded or prejudiced. This placed significant constraints on the nature and scope of subsequent press reporting. The issue was not simply one of balance; a newspaper could be in contempt by virtue of publishing one prejudicial article, even if the same newspaper published many favourable ones. It is noteworthy that on 31 December 2010 the Attorney General, having seen the first wave of reporting in certain sections of the press, felt compelled to issue a public statement to editors warning them of the need to comply with the 1981 Act. Additionally, there were the limitations imposed by clause 1 of the Editors' Code and the general law of defamation.

¶4.4 The most damaging articles appeared in the press between 31 December 2010 and 2 January

Mr Jefferies' own characterisation of this material was that it amounted to a 'frenzied campaign to blacken my character', and contained the 'wildest flights of fantasy'. As he put the matter in his witness statement:64

'I can see now that, following my arrest, the national media shamelessly vilified me. The UK press set about what can only be described as a witch-hunt. It was clear that the tabloid press had decided that I was guilty of Ms Yeates' murder and seemed determined to persuade the public of my guilt... by publishing a series of very serious allegations about me which were completely untrue, allegations which were a F mixture of smear, innuendo and complete fiction. I have been told by friends and family that while I was in custody extraordinary efforts were made by the media to contact anyone who may have had any knowledge about me, including friends from schooldays whom I had not seen for some considerable time, and former pupils. The tabloid press undertook what was quite simply gratuitous dirt-digging'

¶4.5 Mr Jefferies gave evidence about what he called the 'eight worst offending articles' which were

published in six separate newspapers over a three day period.65 Three of these featured in contempt of court proceedings brought by the Attorney General in July 2011, which was after it had been conclusively established that Mr Jefferies could not have been the killer. In the result, News Group Newspapers (NGN) Ltd was fined £18,000 in respect of an article published in The Sun on 1 January 2011, and Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) Ltd was fined £50,000 in relation to articles published in the Daily Mirror on 31 December 2010 and 1 January 2011 respectively.

¶4.6 It is unnecessary to dwell on the language and tone of the 'offending articles'. It is sufficient

to draw on their characterisation by the Lord Chief Justice in the contempt proceedings. As for the article published in The Sun on 1 January 2011, Lord Judge said:66

'The articles in the one issue of The Sun were written and laid out in such a way that they would have conveyed to the reader of the front page and the two inside pages over which the stories were spread that he was a stalker, with an obsession with death, who let himself into the flats of other occupants of the building where

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Miss Yeates lived, and that he had an unhealthy interest in blonde young women. ... Although the articles contain statements or words which could be said to have been favourable to Mr Jefferies, these were quite insufficient to counter the way in which the spread of the articles, and their content, associated Mr Jefferies with this murder. These articles would have certainly justified an abuse of process argument, and although their effect is not as grave as that of two series of articles contained in the Mirror, the vilification of Mr Jefferies created a very serious risk that the preparation of his defence would be damaged...'

¶4.7 And as for the articles published in the Daily Mirror on 31 December 2010 and 1 January

¶2011, he went on:67

'The material in the two publications of the Daily Mirror is extreme. True, it does not positively assert that Mr Jefferies was guilty of involvement in paedophile crimes, or the unsolved murdered many years earlier. It is submitted that the articles were unflattering, suggesting that he was an eccentric loner. So they were. But they went very much further. It was asserted, in effect directly, that his standard of behaviour, so far as sexual matters were concerned was unacceptable, and he was linked to both the paedophile offences and the much earlier murder offence. That indeed was the point of the articles. The juxtaposition of the photographs of two murdered women, together with the layout of the places where they died in proximity to Mr Jefferies home, was stark. And in the context of the murder of Miss Yeates herself, the second article implied that Mr Jefferies was in a particularly convenient position, as her landlord, to have gained access to her premises to commit a murder, according to the

¶F article, committed by an intruder...'

¶4.8 Ultimately, Mr Jefferies successfully brought proceedings for defamation against eight

newspapers68 in relation to allegations contained in 40 separate articles.69 At the hearing before Mr Justice Tugendhat on 29 July 2011 when the libel settlements were announced, Mr Jefferies' solicitor said this:70

''Christopher Jefferies is the latest victim of the regular witch hunts and character assassination conduct by the worst elements of the British tabloid media. Many of the stories published in these newspapers are designed to 'monster' the individual, in flagrant disregard of his reputation, privacy and rights to a fair trial.''

¶4.9 Similar strictures had previously been made in a somewhat different tone, but with equivalent

accuracy, by Ms Yeates' partner, Greg Reardon, who issued a press statement on 1 January 2011 in these terms:71

'Jo's life was cut short tragically but the finger pointing and character assassination by social and news media of as yet innocent men had been shameful. It has made me lose a lot of faith in the morality of the British press and those who spend their time fixed to the internet in this modern age ... I hope in the future they will show a

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more sensitive and impartial view to those involved in such heartbreaking events and especially in the lead-up to potentially high-profile court cases.'

¶4.10 But, as Mr Jefferies has pointed out,72 the majority of newspapers failed to print this section of his tribute, and those who did omitted critical wording, altering the meaning completely.

¶The press perspective 4.11 The Inquiry heard from two journalists involved in these stories, one employed by MGN and

the other by NGN, the publishers of the Daily Mirror and The Sun newspapers generally, as well as from those who played an editorial role. As with the McCanns, no criticism is made or to be inferred of the journalists, because it was not their decision to run with the story generally or to publish any specific or individual pieces.

¶4.12 It is clear from their evidence that a number of former pupils of Mr Jefferies were approached

by journalists to give their views of his character, personality and temperament. This in itself was a risky and unwise course of action; it could be treated as an opportunity for old scores to be settled, and some may also have believed that there could be no smoke without fire. To their credit, not every pupil succumbed to these temptations. Whereas it is true that many of the articles written about Mr Jefferies included favourable material, the point made by the Lord Chief Justice in the contempt proceedings (namely that this was quite insufficient to nullify the prejudicial impact of the disparaging material) is of course entirely valid; and in any event that which spoke of Mr Jefferies in positive terms did not do full justice to the quality and weight of that material. Furthermore, evidence given by one of the journalists does altogether chime with evidence the Inquiry has already noted in relation to the McCanns:73 F ''Well, obviously hindsight's a wonderful thing, and looking back, we – everybody at the Daily Mirror is very regretful of the coverage and we do apologise to Mr Jefferies for vilifying him in such a way, but you have to understand at the time it was such a high profile murder investigation. There was huge public interest and concern over the tragic death of Joanna Yeates. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I understand that. Actually, let me share this with you, Mr Parry: that's one of my concerns, that everybody in retrospect will say, "Well, that clearly went too far and this clearly was wrong and that shouldn't have happened and we'll put in place mechanisms to try to prevent it in the future" – until the next enormous story comes along and it all just drains away. A. I accept that, but I think you'll find that this particular story was perhaps, you know, a watershed moment for the industry. It wasn't – an eye opener. It wasn't just the Daily Mirror. It was a number of newspapers who fell foul of this.''

¶4.13 There is clearly a sense here of the story acquiring its own close to irresistible momentum and

running out of control. The same sense emerges from other evidence the Inquiry received, some of which is set out below.

¶4.14 The duty editor at The Sun over the New Year period in 2010/2011 was Stephen Waring,

its current publishing director, the editor Dominic Mohan being on holiday. Mr Waring gave entirely frank evidence about his paper's coverage of this story, and freely admitted

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his mistakes. He also volunteered the fact that he spoke to Mr Mohan about the coverage in the 1 January edition and that the latter said that he thought that the paper should be more balanced.74 Mr Waring gave the following explanations as to how the story came to be published in the way in which it did:75

''... to me there are three elements to this. There's the material we'd previously published the day before, ie the first day of Mr Jefferies' arrest, and there was a lot of critical comment about his character from four unnamed pupils, ex-teachers, people – former acquaintances, and that set a particular tone, which coloured my judgment wrongly, but that coloured the judgment. There was the nature of the story, which, just to put it in context, this story had been, as I say, on the front page for seven previous editions, there was a general bafflement as to the motive for this appalling murder, and Mr Jefferies' inconsistency, as it was perceived in his story the day before he was arrested seemed, wrongly, to be the great breakthrough, and this led to a great outpouring of adverse comment about his character ... But the key aspect of this is the light in which this was legalled. I can't speak for the lawyer's own mind, but we are talking about an era where there was a far more liberal interpretation about what we could get away with in print.''

¶4.15 This reference to what newspapers could 'get away with in print', which was Mr Waring's own

choice of language, was a reference to the application of the contempt of court legislation by the Attorney General. However, as the Divisional Court in the contempt proceedings amply made clear, the Attorney was merely applying the law as it had been set out and applied in the relevant legislation. If previous holders of that office had been applying a more liberal

¶F interpretation of the law, then newspapers were indeed 'getting away with' more than they

should have done. In any event, this was not simply a question of contempt: it was a gross libel. Nonetheless, this evidence chimed with other evidence heard by the Inquiry that, in large parts of the press, the primary concerns of legal and managerial oversight are to avoid litigation: the fact that a particular story, or a particular method might have been unethical, but legal, received little attention.

¶4.16 It would be wrong to leave Mr Waring's evidence without setting out his closing remark in full:76

''Could I just say one other thing? Please don't judge my colleagues by the errors I've made in this edition, because they are a bunch of very committed, hard-working individuals, the finest journalists in Fleet Street, and the Sun is a very vibrant paper that is a compassionate paper. We produce 100,000 items a year. We got this one badly wrong and I admit that, but these mistakes do happen.''

¶4.17 Richard Wallace gave evidence about the Mr Jefferies' case in his capacity as editor of the Daily

Mirror at the relevant time. As with Mr Waring, he frankly admitted that on this occasion his newspaper fell short of its own benchmark standards of fairness, justice and compassion,77 and that this was a 'very black mark on [his] editing record'.78 Mr Wallace claimed that the Daily Mirror was acting on the faith of a number of off-the-record briefings from police

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officers,79 the existence of which has been denied by the former Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary, Colin Port, in his witness statement to the Inquiry.80 The Inquiry is not in a position to resolve this potential conflict of evidence, nor does it need to. The possibility that the Daily Mirror was in receipt of unauthorised briefings as opposed to authorised, off- the-record guidance has not been overlooked.

¶4.18 Mr Wallace was asked to consider whether there were broader reasons underlying the Daily

¶Mirror's error of judgment in this case. It is worthwhile setting out his answer in full:81

''Q. So what was it that was driving you to take such a risky decision? Was it simply such a big story that you couldn't afford to ignore it? A. No, I made a very serious misjudgment. Q. I'm trying to explore what pressures were on you. Was it because of the competition with your rivals, who were also covering the story very extensively and in lurid terms? A. Competition is always keen within Fleet Street. That has led us to have a very – and continue to have a very vibrant press. The envy of the world, I might add. But – one always wants to beat the competition, but one should not become reckless in seeking to beat your competition. How, in your view, would you learn from the mistake that you made on this occasion to avoid something like this happening again? A. I think Mr Jefferies' name will be imprinted on my brain forever more. It will change very much the way I deal with any story of this nature in the future. Q. Apart from that, is there any practical change that could be made to reduce the risk of something like this happening again? F A. I don't believe so, because ultimately it's down to the judgments of editors and, you know, as I found in this regard and other mistakes have been highlighted, we all make mistakes. I'm not seeking to downplay those mistakes or dismiss them; I'm just saying you can have as many safeguards and checks and balances in place as you would like but these errors are going to happen. It's about creating a climate, I believe, which makes all editors think perhaps a little bit longer than they have previously.''

¶4.19 Putting to one side the concerns arising from Mr Wallace's failure to identify any specific

changes that could be introduced to avoid such reporting in the future,82 he was right to point out that editorial judgment will always be an important factor, and that mistakes will be made, even in the most ethical of systems. However, the final point he made in this section of his evidence is deserving of greater emphasis. Mr Wallace referred to the creation of a 'climate'; this Inquiry has throughout spoken in terms of creating a culture, and one of greater respect for the rights of individuals and, as in Mr Jefferies' case, for the rule of law. The Daily Mirror believed that their story was accurate, otherwise they would not have published it. To suggest otherwise would be to accuse the paper of malice, and there is simply no evidence to support that allegation. It is possible to make the relevant point far more modestly in this way: even if the story had not been defamatory, the Daily Mirror and other newspapers should not have published it. Mr Wallace accepted that no editor should become reckless in

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seeking to beat the competition, and in this particular case he should also accept that he fell short of that standard too.

¶4.20 It is worth making another point as well. Much has been said, quite rightly, about the

exceptionally good reporting that comes out of the press in this country. That is not, however, the point. What matters is the fact that poor decisions and serious lapses in the standards that the press set for themselves are more than occasionally evident and few papers can say that they have never published a story that failed to meet the standards of the Editors' Code. A regulatory system is there to uphold standards for all, however they normally behave; it needs to exist alongside any question of redress and whether or not the particular breach gives rise to an actionable tort.

¶4.21 Mr Jefferies was the victim of a very serious injustice perpetrated by a significant section of

the press. Without such reporting, it is hard to accept that he would have found it necessary to change his appearance and effectively lodge with friends for approximately three months. For those who have said that the Inquiry has been overly concerned with the complaints of celebrities, Mr Jefferies was not such an individual. Nor were the McCanns or the Dowlers. Clearly, all of these witnesses would have wished for nothing more than to have remained well out of the public eye and off the front pages of newspapers but, for reasons beyond their control, that was not where they found themselves.