FINES FOR SUB-EDITORS

Evening Star, Issue 14535, 10 December 1910, Page 11

FINES FOR SUB-EDITORS

Quito. a crop of prosecutions against Pressmen for rontempl of court have followed t.lio Crippen murder trial. The editor and associate editor of the 'Daily Chronicle' h<i-vo hern fined £2CO for having published, while Crippen was in Canada, a cablegram .stating that ho had confessed to having poisoned hi.s wife. Tho managing director of tho 'Sheffield Weekly Telegraph ' and ouo of tho subeditors of that paper have been "jointly and severally" lined £IOO for publishing tho following paragraph before Crippcji's case had been decided: FLYIXC FROM JUSTICE. I)R CRIPPEX FORGOT' ALL ABOUT WIRELESS. IT BROUGHT ABOUT HIS CAPTURE. In the murder itself, despite the diabolical skill and cunning with which the remains were- mutilated, who knows what litllo insignificant partido of evidence ho may have omitted to obliterate, and which may perhaps he the very thing to hi his fate.

The suh-editcr who passed this paragraph lost his situation in addition to being lined. In giving judgment, Mr Justice Darling remarked that the defenco had said that tho article was not inserted with the intention of influencing public opinion, but for the purposo of edifying and amusing readers. Ho (His Lordship) could not sec that such an article could edify anyone, ?ior could he see that it amused, although some people wexo amused at tho talcs of murderers and tho mistakes they might make. There was no doubt that this was contempt of court. A third case was that of tho 'Evening !Ncws.' Tho contempt in this case was the publication on Friday, October 21, during tho progress of the trial, of an incorrect story that the quarter-master of the steamer Montroso, mentioned by Crippen as being able to support his story of a "concealment plot," had been in consultation with Mr Muir, prosecuting counsel, tho previous night in London. This publication was made in the earliest edition, and also in the later editions, whilst Mr Muir was cross-examining on tho lines that the prosecution knew nothing of the whereabouts of the quartermaster. Mr Sherman, K.C. (for thooffending journalists), submitted that the publication in the first edition was harmless. Later in tho day it was incorrect, when alongside with the cross-examination by Mr Muir; hut counsel urged that none of tho four persons realised that tho two things, read together, might make the matter harmful. Tho Lord Chief Justioe, in giving judgment, 6aid that the Judges wero not at all satisfied that in these cases a lino was sufficient punishment. Ho commented on the absence of any inquiry made to certify the information, and ordered a fine of £2OO and costs to bo paid, the editor and tho three subeditors who had dealt with the offending paragraph in the course of October 21 to remain in court till tho £2OO was paid.— London correspondent, October 28.