A proposed “governance framework” for Google’s Privacy Sandbox technology lets the tech giant “mark its own homework” around competition issues.

This is the view of the Movement for an Open Web on the latest news around Google’s proposed advertising technology for its dominant Chrome browser.

The framework, which has been articulated in response to Competition and Markets Authority concerns that Privacy Sandbox could help Google “self-preference” in the digital ad market, proposes remedies such as annual reports to the CMA and the introduction of an appeals process.

In a report published this week, the CMA indicated that the framework “could resolve a range of outstanding issues” around competition and privacy in Google’s Privacy Sandbox, a suite of technologies designed to place advertisements online without the need for third-party cookies.

However, the CMA added the framework would only resolve those issues provided it “is implemented effectively. Until Google has done so, these issues will remain unresolved”.

Sandbox technology will be offered as an alternative to third-party cookies as a way of personalising online advertising, in the process making publisher ad inventory much more valuable.

What’s in Google’s proposed governance framework for Privacy Sandbox?

Google has told the CMA its Privacy Sandbox governance framework can feature:

• The introduction of a formal consultation period for major changes to any Privacy Sandbox tools with a feedback period currently pegged at three weeks
• The introduction of an externally-managed appeals process that would, for example, allow publishers to appeal Google decisions around the Sandbox
• Annual reports to the CMA and the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The co-founder of campaign group Movement for an Open Web, James Rosewell, said the framework “does little to calm real-world concerns”.

One of those concerns is that Google, which boasts large amounts of first-party data from logged-in users of products like Youtube and Gmail, will benefit disproportionately from the introduction of Sandbox technology.

Google already takes the lion’s share of the UK advertising market, banking around £14bn last year from search alone.

In its last report on the issue, in April 2024, the CMA said it was considering “whether additional restrictions may be needed to resolve this concern”. There does not appear to have been any motion on this front since then: in its latest report, the regulator wrote that it is “continuing to discuss this issue with Google”.

Rosewell said that this issue “has been flagged from day one and it’s still outstanding… We need to chalk up this anti-competitive effort as a failure”.

Google also appears not to have offered the CMA any guarantees that publishers won’t be penalised in Google search if they decline to use Privacy Sandbox.

The CMA has said previously that Google has confirmed its search engine “will not use a site’s decision to opt-out of the Topics API as a ranking signal”, but the Topics API (application programming interface) is only one of numerous that make up the Privacy Sandbox.

In this week’s report, the CMA said only that “we are continuing to discuss this issue with Google”. (Experts Press Gazette spoke with in April suggested the tech giant’s hesitancy to make further promises may arise from the fact some of the Sandbox APIs pertain to user protection, for example around spam and fraud, which could be legitimate reasons to down-rank a site.)

[Read more: Fears Google could down-rank publishers who decline to use Privacy Sandbox]

Rosewell said that the framework “is being pushed as a solution to many ills but it’s clear that it’s a weak veneer of self regulation that does little to calm real-world concerns.

“The proposed structure is little more than Google marking its own homework as it oversees its monopolistic dominance of the market. Without true independence and broad scope Google’s so-called Governance Framework will just be more window dressing.”

Responding to the criticism, a spokesperson for Google said: “We believe our approach supports healthy competition across the industry while improving user privacy. This approach, which lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, is still being discussed with regulators and we will share more details at the appropriate time.”

The CMA’s report comes after Google announced in July that it would not scrap third-party cookies on its Chrome browser, a decision that itself came four years after the company first promised to deprecate the tech.

Cookies help marketers target their ads to specific audiences and improve news publisher ad revenue by giving them, and their advertisers, a more detailed picture of who reads their content. Google’s Privacy Sandbox is intended to let advertisers target readers with relevant ads while protecting their privacy by sorting them into “cohorts” with similar interests and recent web activity.

Chrome users will now be able to choose to continue using third-party cookies if they prefer, but the CMA said its concerns around the technology remain relevant: “For the proportion of traffic where third-party cookies are unavailable, the Privacy Sandbox tools will remain important for the ad tech ecosystem to target and measure advertising”.

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The publisher of the Daily Mail has won a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights opposing “excessive” costs incurred by claimants in defamation and privacy cases.

The publisher argued that its right to freedom of expression, under Article 10 of the European Convention, had been breached.

The ruling follows a privacy case brought by man who was arrested, but not charged, following a terror attack. The Mail’s £83,000 damages award was dwarfed by the £822,000 paid out to the man’s lawyers.

Associated Newspapers took the UK Government to the Strasbourg court over conditional fee arrangements (CFA) and After the Event (ATE) insurance premiums in relation to two recent cases for which it had to pay the extra costs.

It won on CFAs and the UK was ordered to pay the publisher €15,000 in costs and expenses, with a further decision to be made on any pecuniary damages. But the publisher did not succeed on the part of its case relating to ATE premiums.

CFAs allow claimants to engage a solicitor on a “no win, no fee” basis or pay only part of the fee before the case concludes. If they win, they pay a success fee on top of the normal fees. But if they lose, their lawyer does not get paid.

ATE premiums underwrite a claimant’s liability to pay the defendant’s costs should their case be unsuccessful.

Associated complained about CFAs in relation to a privacy case brought by a man named by Mail Online after he was arrested, but never charged, on suspicion of involvement in the 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack.

The ruling in favour of the man is one of a number in recent years that have set a precedent in favour of greater privacy and against naming suspects before charge.

Associated was ordered to pay the man £83,000 in damages plus costs of £822,421.79, which included £245,775 plus VAT for the success fee agreed between the man and his lawyer.

The publisher agreed that its liability to pay this sort of success fee breached Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Associated said, according to a court summary, that the “burdens placed on unsuccessful defendants were excessive and unfair, and the threat of such liabilities was plainly capable of discouraging the participation of the press in debates over matters of legitimate concern”.

The case referenced a 2011 ruling in which Mirror publisher MGN Ltd won a similar case in the European Court after it faced a legal costs bill for more than £1m over a case in which supermodel Naomi Campbell won £3,500 in damages.

Legislation was adopted in 2013 to prevent losing parties from being liable for success fees and ATE insurance premiums – except in defamation and privacy cases. Liability for success fees in defamation and privacy was abolished in 2019, except when the CFA pre-dated that decision which was the case here, but successful claimants can still recover the costs of ATE premiums from the losing party.

For this reason the court concluded that the obligation on the media company to pay additional costs including success fees was “disproportionate”, resulting in a violation of Article 10.

But it found the obligation to pay ATE premiums to the man in the Manchester Arena case, as well as to a woman who separately settled with Associated over “defamatory” allegations that she gave credibility to the false claims of convicted fantasist Carl Beech that led to the historic child sex abuse investigation Operation Midland, was not disproportionate.

The woman in that case asked to receive £825,164.40, of which £335,160 represented the ATE premium, but ultimately accepted £709,095.15 as the costs settlement.

The judgment summary said the premium payments were proportionate “especially since those premiums would have served in the newspaper company’s interests had it won the cases against it”.

The ruling was a Chamber judgment, meaning both sides now have three months in which they can ask for it to be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court for consideration as to whether it deserves further examination.

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The Society of Editors and the Crime Reporters Association have warned that plans to introduce a presumption of anonymity for firearms officers facing criminal trial represents “a significant departure” from the principle of open justice.

In a joint letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Society of Editors executive director Dawn Alford and Crime Reporters Association chair Rebecca Camber sought assurances that the new framework could not one day expand to cover other officers accused of using force in the line of duty.

The anonymity proposals — introduced last week after the police officer who shot Chris Kaba dead in 2022 was found not guilty of his murder — would keep the identity of accused firearms officers secret until they are convicted.

Since 1990 there have been four prosecutions of firearms officers over shooting deaths, and in none of those cases was an individual officer ultimately convicted. (The Metropolitan Police as a whole were convicted over the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005.)

The Home Secretary’s proposals are intended to protect officers against possible future retribution. Sky News has reported that Martyn Blake, the officer who shot Kaba, is living in hiding after a bounty was placed on his head by gang members. Blake’s identity had been kept secret until a successful media challenge led the judge to lift a previous anonymity order.

However Alford and Camber said they felt “shared concern” that a presumption of anonymity could in time undermine the principle of open justice.

They wrote: “While we recognise that criminal prosecutions brought against police officers for actions taken in the course of their duties are extremely rare, the proposal to grant automatic anonymity for firearms officers represents a significant departure from the principle of open justice and raises serious questions about transparency and public confidence in the police service as a whole.

“While limited to firearms officers at present, the introduction of such legislation risks laying the framework for other officers accused of using force in the line of duty to seek anonymity under the same provisions and, with this in mind, we would welcome your assurances as to what measures you have taken to ensure this cannot happen and that judges will not seek to apply the same provisions elsewhere.

“While we recognise that such steps are being introduced for the purpose of protecting officers from future retribution, open justice remains a fundamental principle at the very heart of our justice system and is vital to our rule of law. This week you talked about restoring confidence in the police. For confidence to be enhanced, the rule of law must apply equally to police as it does to the general public.”

Secrecy around the criminal justice system has increase in recent years as those under criminal investigation, but not charged, now have a right to privacy in the UK.

In May 2024, a law passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly which would give those charged with sexual offences anonymity unless convicted was struck out after being challenged by the media.

[Related: Journalists fear ‘secret justice’ over proposed one-reporter limit in sex trials]

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The Sun’s Victoria Newton has revealed she felt “quite lonely” at times in her capacity as editor in the wake of the paper’s revelation that a BBC star had been taken off air after “paying a teenager for sexual pictures”.

While The Sun chose not to name the star at the centre of the scandal, journalist Vicky Flind later revealed it was her husband Huw Edwards.

The Metropolitan Police investigated the claims but concluded there was “no information to indicate that a criminal offence has been committed”.

The Sun then became the subject of criticism for reporting the claims, intensified by the news that Edwards had been hospitalised for a serious mental health episode.

But with Edwards now having pleaded guilty to three counts of having indecent images of children, Sun editor Victoria Newton has defended her paper’s original coverage of Edwards on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show.

‘Everyone was saying we had made this story up’

Newton noted that The Sun “never said it was a criminal offence” in its reporting last year, adding that “it’s a very grey area, it’s a very complicated bit of law.

“We made a strong decision at the time that we weren’t going to publish any of the evidence, or any more background, so he could recover. The problem for us was a big one, because everyone was saying we must have made this story up.”

However The Sun had plenty of evidence to substantiate its reporting, including texts, Whatsapp messages, social media messages, and bank statements, Newton said.

She said the paper had been “getting information on Edwards’ behaviour going back to 2018… There was a pattern of behaviour; it was always the same modus operandi… so we knew that before this family came to us.”

But when the parents of the young man involved contacted The Sun with their concerns, Newton decided it was right to publish the allegations. She said: “With other stories, we’d always looked at them individually and gone ‘is there public interest in that? No there isn’t. Not interested’.

“But this particular story stood out because there was a young person at the heart of this who was in a desperate situation, highly vulnerable, and the parents felt they had nowhere else to go. They’d gone to the BBC, they talked to the police, and they got nowhere, and they just wanted the payments to stop. So that’s why they came to us in desperation.”

Newton continued: “At one stage, we maybe had 20 lawyers in the room, it felt like that anyway. But ultimately the loneliness of being an editor often is when you’ve had all the legal advice you can, and the advice around IPSO which is our self-regulatory body… ultimately you have to make that decision.

“So when you get attacked for that, that can also feel quite lonely. But we have an army of good people who help us hopefully make the right decisions.”

Sun editor says Huw Edwards arrest ‘should have been revealed at the time’

Newton claimed that numerous newspapers had heard rumours that Edwards had been arrested in November last year but were never given confirmation by police so were unable to report it.

Ultimately the Met did not tell journalists Edwards had been charged in June until Monday 29 July, two days before he was due in court.

“We all tried,” Newton said. “We went to the Met, and with various other newspapers the rumours went round, and I was certain that it was true. But until you have the Met confirm it, you can’t go with it. And I know that lots of other reporters tried it and they were met with the rule of silence.”

Newton expressed her frustration with the opacity that now surrounds celebrity arrests and charges, blaming rulings that have “set the tone for what people can and can’t publish”.

A Supreme Court ruling in 2022, Bloomberg LP vs ZXC, has had a significant impact on the ability to report on early criminal proceedings as it determined that a person under investigation cannot be named by the media until they are charged.

Newton added that “you take a huge risk as a publisher if you decide to say ‘okay, I’m going to name that person who’s been arrested because it’s in the public interest’.

“You’re potentially liable to be sued for millions of pounds. So you can imagine being a small publisher or local newspaper, and you’re never going to take that risk.”

She added: “The public should have a right to know, certainly when someone’s been charged with such a serious offence. Often you find with cases of sexual abuse, the only way you can find people guilty in court is more victims coming forward. So I’m a firm believer that the arrest should have been revealed at the time.”

Sun editor: BBC News coverage made us ‘vilified’

Newton primarily blamed the BBC for turning the narrative of the scandal onto The Sun when the Metropolitan Police found no evidence of criminality and Edwards was being treated in hospital.

The BBC was originally criticised for focusing on the scandal too much, though it claimed its coverage was proportionate.

Newton said: “I did feel, and I have to say it was BBC News that did this, the point that changed the story in terms of us being vilified by the friends of Mr Edwards, and by various people who worked at the BBC, was when the BBC News at Six ran a letter from the young man saying that the story was total rubbish. And they gave us an hour’s notice on that.

“I had already been in discussions with BBC News saying ‘do you understand he’s highly vulnerable?’ He’d had Huw Edwards on the phone threatening him that he was going to destroy his family if he went ahead with the story, and that he had to make it stop.

“That person was under so much pressure, and I did warn BBC News, but they ran that anyway, and that was the thing that changed the narrative.”

Since Edwards pleaded guilty to separate offences, the young person has come forward to tell the Daily Mirror he now feels like he was “taken pure advantage of” by the broadcaster but that he “felt obliged to protect him” after he was named last year.

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The Daily Mirror has followed The Guardian and apologised to Dan Wootton for reporting on a police investigation against the former GB News presenter.

The title is one of a number of publications and individuals to receive a letter from Wootton’s lawyers after reporting in October that he was the subject of a police investigation.

Citing the Bloomberg versus ZXC Supreme Court judgment, Wootton has said reporting of the police investigation was a breach of his privacy.

Last month Wootton revealed that the Met Police and Police Scotland had both decided to take no action against him after investigating complaints.

Press Gazette understands the Mirror publisher has made a five-figure payment to Wootton. The Guardian has also made a payment to Wootton.

The Mirror apology reads as follows: “An article headlined ‘Met Police launches probe into ‘Dan Wootton sex offences’ allegations’ was published on our website on 2 October 2023 and removed later that day following a complaint from Dan Wootton.

“Last week, the Metropolitan Police and Police Scotland said that they had concluded their investigations and are taking no further action.

“We accept that we were wrong to have published the article and apologise unreservedly to Mr Wootton for any upset the article may have caused.

“Mr Wootton has restated that the police inquiries have exonerated him of any criminal wrongdoing.”

Wootton is continuing to pursue his complaint against Byline Times, Newsquest-owned title The National and high-profile X (formerly Twitter) users Carol Vorderman, Emily Maitlis and Marina Purkiss.

Byline Times has given no indication that it plans to settle with Wootton. Byline Times co-founder and executive editor Peter Jukes told Press Gazette last week: “Byline Times will respond to Dan Wootton’s lawyer in due course. Meanwhile, we will always stand by public interest journalism.”

Earlier this week Wootton announced his departure from GB News after being suspended in September in response to Laurence Fox making sexist comments on his programme. Ofcom has now upheld complaints against GB News over the incident and found that Wootton’s “limited challenge” to Fox exacerbated the potential for offence.

Wootton has now launched his own media brand, Dan Wootton Outspoken, which will be a paid-for newsletter on Substack and a daily Youtube show.

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No UK media have used a paparazzi image of Kate, the Princess of Wales, observing a long-held convention not to use such pictures.

The image was taken by a photographer for Backgrid (which was bought by Shutterstock last month) and was published in the UK on celebrity news website TMZ.

Whereas most UK news publications adhere to the Editors’ Code, US publications do not and are used to a legal framework where the First Amendment (guaranteeing freedom of expression) tends to trump the right to privacy.

In the UK, the right to privacy is well established and the publication of images such as this one would need to be justified in the public interest.

Kate has not been photographed in public since she underwent abdominal surgery on 16 January, prompting widespread speculation on social media about her health.

The Editors’ Code, which underpins the work of press regulator IPSO, states: “Everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life, home, physical and mental health, and correspondence, including digital communications.”

It states that it is unacceptable to photograph people without their consent in public places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The photograph in question, which is grainy and looks to have been taken with a long lens, shows the Princess on a private car journey being driven by her mother.

Vice-chair of the National Association of Press Agencies Mike Leidig said: “By long arrangement with Buckingham and Kensington Palaces, the British media agrees not to intrude into areas, such as health, which could be considered sensitive. In return, they are kept up to date off the record.

“There is also the IPSO Editors’ Code clause on privacy, which binds the British media to show restraint and sensitivity to people undergoing medical treatment, even if they appear to be in a public place where anyone could see them.

“Having said that, there does seem to be an anomaly where the British public has to remain in the dark about the Princess of Wales’s recovery while readers in America, or anyone with internet access can see it for themselves. It was running on X almost within seconds.”

Camilla Tominey, an associate editor of the Daily Telegraph covering politics and the Royal Family, said: “My understanding is no newspaper is running them in the UK because they are deemed a breach of privacy and there’s no longer a market for paparazzi photographs of the Royals in the wake of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Leveson Inquiry.”

And executive director of the Society of Editors Dawn Alford said: “The decision by the UK press not to publish the paparazzi photos of Kate Middleton is an example of responsible journalism. Kensington Palace has asked that the Princess of Wales be allowed to recover in private following her operation and UK newsrooms are respecting this.”

Agency Backgrid which took the Kate image was involved in an incident in New York last May when Prince Harry said he and his wife Meghan were chased around the city by paparazzi photographers.

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The Guardian has apologised and agreed to make a payment to suspended GB News presenter Dan Wootton after reporting that he was under police investigation.

It is one of a number of publications and individuals facing the threat of legal action from Wootton for invasion of privacy, and the first to opt for a settlement.

Wootton complained over an article headlined “Police investigating allegations Dan Wootton solicited explicit images” which was published on 2 October 2023 and removed from The Guardian website the following day after complaints from his lawyers.

His lawyer Donal Blaney argued that it is now well established in UK law that people who are the subject of a police investigation have a right to privacy unless they are charged with a criminal offence.

The Guardian said in a published apology: “We apologise to Mr Wootton for the article. Last week, the Metropolitan Police and Police Scotland said they had concluded their investigations and are taking no further action. Mr Wootton has restated that the police inquiries have exonerated him of any criminal wrongdoing.”

The Guardian said it has paid an unspecified contribution to Wootton’s legal costs. Press Gazette understands it is a significant sum.

Press Gazette understands that Wootton is in negotiations with the Mirror, which also published news of the police investigation only later to take the story down.

Newsquest’s The National in Scotland is also under threat of legal action for an article that was published and then removed.

Byline Times, which was the first outlet to report that Wootton was under police investigation last year, has made no indication that it plans to settle.

Byline Times co-founder and executive editor Peter Jukes told Press Gazette: “Byline Times will respond to Dan Wootton’s lawyer in due course. Meanwhile, we will always stand by public interest journalism.”

Marina Purkiss facing Wootton legal complaint over social media post

Last week Press Gazette reported that celebrity Carol Vorderman and former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis had also been contacted by Wootton’s legal team over content posted on X (formerly Twitter) related to the fact Wootton was under police investigation.

Press Gazette now understands that political commentator Marina Purkiss has also attracted the attention of Wootton’s legal team over reference made to the police investigation on X.

Wootton’s lawyer Donal Blaney has written a letter before action to Byline Times over its reporting, citing the Bloomberg versus ZXC Supreme Court judgment of 2022 in which a businessman successfully sued for invasion of privacy over a report that he was being investigated over allegations of bribery and corruption.

Byline Times reported in October 2023 that Wootton was the subject of a Met Police investigation after the force confirmed to them that it was investigating allegations involving a man in his 40s.

Wootton said in a statement last week: “I have now been completely cleared in two investigations by the Metropolitan and Scottish Police, who have confirmed they will be taking no further action.”

He added: “It is high time that all of our ancient rights were once again upheld, chief among them the right to be presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law.”

In September 2019 the BBC paid Cliff Richard £210,000 in damages and £2m in legal costs after it reported on a police raid on the singer’s home. The Devil Woman singer was never arrested or charged with a criminal offence.

Wootton was suspended from his role as a presenter on GB News in October last year after a row over comments made on his show by actor-turned-politician Laurence Fox about a female journalist.

Wootton also had his contract as a columnist with the Daily Mail terminated at the same time.

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Dan Wootton is seeking damages, an apology and the retraction of articles from Byline Times after it reported on the fact he was being investigated by police.

Press Gazette understands that Wootton’s legal team is also writing to Carol Vorderman and former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis over statements made by them on Twitter.

The suspended GB News presenter is also considering legal action against other media outlets over articles published in October last year.

Wootton revealed on Tuesday that two police forces, the Met Police and Police Scotland, had concluded investigations against him and would be taking no further action.

Press Gazette understands Wootton’s lawyer Donal Blaney has written a letter before action to Byline Times over its reporting, citing the Bloomberg versus ZXC Supreme Court judgment of 2022.

This case established the precedent that those at the centre of police investigations have a right to privacy until the point at which they are charged with an offence.

Byline Times reported that Wootton was the subject of a Met Police investigation in October 2023 after the force confirmed to them that it was investigating allegations involving a man in his 40s.

The Guardian, Mirror and Newsquest’s The National also reported on the Wootton investigation in October only to take the stories down after being threatened with legal action by his legal team.

The fact of the police investigation can now be safely reported after Wootton himself put the matter into the public domain.

He said in a statement on Wednesday: “I have now been completely cleared in two investigations by the Metropolitan and Scottish Police, who have confirmed they will be taking no further action.”

He added: “It is high time that all of our ancient rights were once again upheld, chief among them the right to be presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law.”

Dan Wootton legal action and Bloomberg versus ZXC

The Bloomberg versus ZXC case centred on a 2016 report in which Bloomberg named a businessman at a large UK public company accused of involvement in bribery and corruption. The publisher was reporting on the contents of a private letter.

The man won an injunction preventing publication and £25,000 in damages.

The Court of Appeal and Supreme Court held that a person usually has “a reasonable and objectively founded expectation of privacy” over the fact they are a subject of a police investigation.

In 2018 the BBC was ordered to pay Sir Cliff Richard £210,000 in damages and £2m in costs after reporting a police raid on his house.

The Wootton case differs from these two precedents because allegations against him were already in the public domain when the fact of the police investigation was reported.

Byline Times first reported on allegations against Wootton in July 2023.

Wootton then responded on GB News. In a six-minute monologue, Wootton told GB News viewers he had made “errors of judgment in the past” but that “criminal allegations being made against me are simply untrue”.

In September 2023, a number of media outlets, including the BBC, reported that Russell Brand was the subject of a police investigation following a Sunday Times/Channel 4 Dispatches investigation into allegations he had committed sexual assaults.

The Met Police did not name Brand but issued a statement that would clearly identify him to anyone who has been following the case.

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A high-profile man who is the subject of an injuncted BBC investigation has lost a bid to have a statement contesting the injunction turned over to police.

Lawyers for the anonymous celebrity argued that a statement the BBC provided to argue against the injunction contains information that would help the police decide whether or not to charge him over allegations of sexual misconduct.

But on Monday a High Court judge rejected the man’s claim. Mrs Justice Collins-Rice said that if the police want to see the sealed document, as they have indicated they do, they may follow procedures laid down already in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. 

What is the background to Monday’s ruling in WFZ v BBC?

In June last year the High Court granted anonymity to a well-known man, identified as WFZ, who had been accused of sexual misconduct by several women.

Although WFZ had been arrested in relation to two allegations of sexual misconduct, and interviewed over a third, he had not then and still has not been charged.

The BBC had been set to broadcast the allegations, but judge Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled last summer there was a “substantial risk” that doing so would impede or prejudice any criminal proceedings against WFZ.

[Read more: Why true stories about active investigations are going untold]

As part of the BBC’s efforts to resist the injunction, the journalist who reported the story submitted a witness statement to the court which included information about how they learned of the allegations and their interactions with WFZ’s accusers. That witness statement is protected by the anonymity order along with the rest of the court file.

However, in August WFZ’s solicitors wrote to the BBC saying that they intended to refer to the BBC journalist’s witness statement in their representations to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service ahead of any decision on whether or not to charge him.

Specifically, the solicitors said they wanted to draw attention to “significant discrepancies” between what WFZ’s accusers told police about him and what they told the journalist.

What was the legal dispute this time?

The BBC journalist refused permission for their witness statement to be used by WFZ’s solicitors, so lawyers for WFZ asked Mrs Justice Collins Rice for the court’s permission instead.

Representing WFZ, Mr Jacob Dean argued that his client was “seeking permission to use material properly in his own hands for a purpose which is entirely consistent with the injunction he obtained and other privacy rulings by which it is protected”.

But representing the BBC Mr Adam Wolanski KC said the request was an attempt to give police access to journalistic material without going through the proper channels already laid down in the law.

Wolanski also referred to a precedent whereby another court accepted that “it is critical that the media are able to speak to sources, including alleged victims of sexual abuse, without those individuals fearing that a record made of their account by a journalist can be obtained by the police and made available to defence counsel to attack their credibility at a trial”.

Mrs Justice Collins Rice agreed that the witness statement contained journalistic material as defined by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), which lays out the circumstances in which police can and cannot compel newsrooms to hand over information.

She also noted that the police have already said they intend to file a PACE production order application in order to see the BBC journalist’s witness statement.

As a result, she said, WFZ was seeking an exemption “alternatively and prematurely to achieve a result the criminal law enforcement agencies have already given the clearest indication of preparing to pursue themselves…

“There is at least enough of a prima facie issue about the journalistic content of the June [witness statement] to persuade the criminal law authorities they need to apply for a production order to get it.

“That is the obvious next step in the criminal proceedings and I have been given no good reason to interfere with or intervene in it.”

Since 2022 news publishers have been reckoning with a Supreme Court ruling, Bloomberg LP vs ZXC, which determined that a person under criminal investigation cannot be named by the media until they are charged, even if they are arrested.

Read the latest WFZ versus BBC judgment in full.

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Ofcom has rejected more than 20 complaints brought against the BBC by Brewdog and its chief executive James Watt.

Watts complained about breach of privacy over coverage of his investments and unfairness in the way the BBC aired allegations of personal misconduct against him.

Ofcom ruled that the BBC Disclosure documentary, The Truth about Brewdog, was fair and that Watts was given adequate right or reply. It said the invasion of privacy was justified in the public interest.

The programme investigating Brewdog’s marketing practices and finances is now back live on BBC iPlayer.

Reporter Mark Daly said on X: “It’s a vindication of the BBC’s journalism, and Ofcom has recognised some important journalistic principles.”

Daly won a British Journalism Award in 2015 for his investigation into athletics doping for Panorama.

Standards complaints about BBC programming must go to the broadcaster first before they can be considered by Ofcom. However, fairness and privacy complaints follow a separate procedure and can go straight to Ofcom, although the regulator does still encourage people to follow the BBC’s complaints procedures first.

Read the James Watt versus the BBC Ofcom ruling in full.

Brewdog said in a statement: “Ofcom’s ruling concerns the BBC’s reporting processes, not the ‘truth’ it reported. The regulator states itself that its role was not to determine the ‘factual accuracy’ of the programme.”

Brewdog said it maintains that the documentary included inaccuracies and said: “Since this programme aired, BrewDog has created nearly 1000 jobs, opened many bars in some of the toughest trading conditions ever and been included in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work as well as named a Top Employer by the Top Employer Institute.”

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