CONTEMPT CASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24913, 12 May 1942, Page 2

CONTEMPT CASE

ACTION AGAINST NEWSPAPER DISMISSED (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 11. Saying that he was unable to regard the publications complained of as • contempt of court by having a tendency to endanger a fair trial, Mr Justice Northcroft in the Supreme Court to-day dismissed the application of the Attorney-general for the committal of John Matnison, publisher of the Star-Sun. The case was heard last Friday. The Attorney-general had asked the court to exercise its jurisdiction against Mathison following the publication of two articles in the Star-Sun, said the judgment. One gave an account of an interview with a man named Denton, about an assault on him by two young men; the other gave an account of the appearance of two men in the Magistrate’s Court, and it was alleged that a fair trial had been prejudiced because the juxtaposition of the articles allowed the public to associate the men mentioned in the court report with the statements made by Denton about the assault, although some of Dentqn’s statements would not be admissible as evidence against the men when they appeared in court. “ It is not for this court to express approval or disapproval of the manner in which a newspaper presents its news as long as the administration of justice is not interfered with,” his Honor said. “In this ase the newspaper may have thought the narrative acquired either dramatic effect or greater credibility by its being given as the version of the victim himself. As I think the public were entitled to entertain legitimate curiosity about the incident, and as in the nature of the case the happening could be described to reporters only by the storekeeper or by his alleged assailants, and these were not likely to be the informants, it seems unimportant that the former was expressly stated to be in fact the informant. The jurisdiction involved is to be applied only in the clearest cases, and where there is no doubt about contempt. In my opinion it is very doubtful whether this publication had the tendency alleged so as to make it a contempt.'