I just wanted to highlight a video by a gentleman whose You Tube channel is called ‘Tyneside Life’. In this video the YouTuber attends one of the pre-trial hearings for the case of two men who are being accused of criminal damage to the tree at Sycamore Gap.

The reason that I’m highlighting this video is because it represents a far higher standard of court reporting than we normally get from the mainstream media. Most media organisations for reasons of cost, staff availability and the legal restrictions that sometimes accompany pre-trial hearings often leave pre-trial hearings well alone.

This failure to cover pre-trial hearings by the mainstream media means that a potential way of educating the public about Britain’s legal system is missed. When media organisations cover only the first or second Magistrates Court appearances and the trial itself it leaves a gap in the public’s understanding of the criminal legal process. This can lead to the public misunderstanding what has gone on with regarding a case and can lead to people jumping to conclusions that turn out to be false.

I’ve seen such misunderstandings happen before especially with regarding Islamic Grooming Gang cases where pre-trial hearings are used to split cases with possibly dozens of defendants into two or more separate trials with reporting restrictions on the first trials which are lifted after the conclusion of the final trial. The average member of the public might not be aware of the sort of pre-trial hearings or what goes on with them so they jump to the false conclusion that information about certain crimes and criminals are being withheld from them. If there was better reporting, within the law of course, about pre-trial hearings, then more people might understand better how the legal process works. With better and more consistent reporting of pre-trial hearings then the public might understand things like the splitting of trials, the discussions of how much evidence is going to be used in the case and the potential number of witnesses that might be called.

I found that Tyneside Life’s explanation of this pre-trial hearing to be highly informative and although I’m not a media lawyer I don’t think that he’s broken any rules here in his reporting. This is a good example of how Citizen Journalists can fill in gaps in news coverage where the mainstream media might not be willing or able or can afford to operate.

Here’s Tyneside Life’s video.