Journalists Lose Appeals

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30058, 16 February 1963, Page 13

Journalists Lose Appeals

(NXJ’A.-Reuter-CopvrigM) LONDON, Feb. 14. The English Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed appeals by two journalists against conviction and prison sentences imposed on them for refusing to tell the Vassals spy tribunal the sources of their information.

The journalists, Mr Brendan Mulholland, aged 29, of the London “Daily Mail.” and Mr Reginald Foster, aged 58, a freelance working for the London “Daily Sketch," were also refused leave to appeal in the House of Lords.

The High Court on Februrary 4 sentenced Mulholland to six months’ imprisonment and Foster, to three months’ for contempt of Court This followed their refu-

sal to answer questions put to them at the vassall tribunal. Not Disproportionate

“After full consideration we have felt unable to adopt the view that sentences are disproportionate to the serious nature of the offencs. The appeals must therefore be dismissed,” Lord Denning said in the Court of Appeal.

But he also ruled that the write should be delayed for 14 days pending a possible application to the House of Lords Appeals Committee. The Judge held that the tribunal’s questions to Mr Mulholland about his sources were both relevant and necessary to the inquiry. Questions

The question concerned statements that an Admiralty girl typist decided that no £l5-a-week clerk could live as expensively as Vassall did, honestly, that Vassell’s colleagues called him “Auntie" and that sponsorship by two senior officals enabled him to avoid the strictest part of

the normal security “vetting.” Mr Foster had refused to give the tribunal his source for a statement that Vassall had bought women’s clothes in London’s West End.

“By his refusal to disclose his source of information,

Mr Foster has precluded the tribunal from tracking down that individual and discovering how much knowledge, if any, he or she had of perverted habits,” the Judge said.

The point about Vaasell buying women’s clothes was: “were those in the admiralty aware of it?" Interests of Justice

The Judge said it seemed to him the journalist put the matter of not revealing sources “much too high.” It seemed to him that wherever a case arose where the interests of justice required disclosure and the Judge so ruled, the newspaper must disclose the source of its information.

It had no privilege in tew to refuse.