Khuja v Times Newspapers Ltd - [2017] UKSC 49

Trinity Term

[2017] UKSC 49

On appeal from: [2014] EWCA Civ 1132

JUDGMENT

Khuja (Appellant) v Times Newspapers Limited and others (Respondents) (formerly known as PNM (Appellant) v Times Newspapers Limited and others (Respondents))

before

Lord Neuberger, President

Lady Hale, Deputy President
Lord Kerr
Lord Clarke
Lord Wilson
Lord Sumption
Lord Reed
JUDGMENT GIVEN ON
19 July 2017

Heard on 17 and 18 January 2017

Appellant Respondents (1 and 2)

Manuel Barca QC Gavin Millar QC
Miss Hannah Ready Adam Wolanski

(Instructed by Collyer (Instructed by Times

Bristow LLP) Newspapers Limited Legal

Department)

Respondent (3 and 4)

Gavin Millar QC
Adam Wolanski
(Instructed by Newquest Media Group Ltd Legal

Department)

(1) Times Newspapers Limited
(2) Andrew Norfolk
(3) Newquest (Oxfordshire & Wiltshire) Ltd
(4) Ben Wilkinson
LORD SUMPTION: (with whom Lord Neuberger, Lady Hale, Lord Clarke and Lord Reed agree)
Introduction
1. For some years The Times and other media organisations have taken a close interest in investigating and reporting on allegations that the police and child protection authorities have failed adequately to confront a pattern of crime involving the sexual exploitation of vulnerable young teenage girls by older men. It need hardly be said that this is a subject of serious public concern. It has given rise to a number of government-ordered national inquiries, a review of standards of
protection in children’s homes, and substantial changes in the procedures of the
police and prosecuting authorities for handling such cases. There have also been a
number of prosecutions.
2. This appeal arises out of the trial of nine men on exceptionally serious charges involving organised child sex grooming and child prostitution in the Oxford area over a period of eight years. The men were arrested in March 2012 by Thames
Valley Police after a long-running investigation known as “Operation Bullfinch”.
They were tried before His Honour Judge Rook QC at the Central Criminal Court between 7 January and 14 May 2013 on an indictment charging rape and conspiracy to rape children, trafficking and child prostitution. On 14 May 2013, seven of them were convicted. The trial attracted considerable publicity in the national and local press and in the broadcast media. Public interest in it was accentuated and prolonged by the perception that the victims of the men convicted had not originally been taken seriously by the police or Oxfordshire social services, and had not received the protection to which they were entitled.
3. The appellant, who has been referred to in these proceedings as PNM, is a prominent figure in the Oxford area. He was arrested at about the same time as the nine and was released on bail on terms (among others) that he surrender his passport. The reason for his arrest was that one of the complainants had told the police that she had been abused by a man with the same, very common, first name. However, she failed to pick him out at an identity parade. He was later told by the police that he would be…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

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Details

Case: [2017] UKSC 49
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

This appeal arises out of the trial of nine men charged with serious offences involving the sexual exploitation of children. The appellant, Tariq Khuja, was arrested at the same time as the nine men but was never charged with any offence. He brought proceedings seeking an injunction to prevent the Times and the Oxford Mail from publishing information identifying him as someone who had been arrested, bailed, his passport impounded and then de-arrested in connection with the investigation of these offences, or as someone suspected by the police of being involved in sexual offences against children. The newspapers argued that they wished to publish this information but that what they publish about these matters would be confined to material derived from the proceedings at the trial. The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by the appellant, and he now appeals to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held that the appeal should be dismissed. The Court acknowledged that the appellant's family life would be adversely impacted by publication but found that there was a significant public interest in the allegations of child abuse which were the subject of the police investigations, and that the publication of proceedings in open court was a proper matter for debate which the media were entitled to raise. The Court also found that the identity of the appellant was not a peripheral or irrelevant feature of the story. The Court concluded that restrictions on the reporting of proceedings in open court were particularly difficult to justify. While Lord Kerr and Lord Wilson dissented, they would have allowed the appeal.

Orders