Cameron ‘Will Allow TV Cameras Inside Courts’

The Prime Minister is expected to announce that television cameras will be allowed to film some elements of court proceedings.

The breakthrough comes after the Head of Sky News, who has spearheaded a campaign to televise court cases, wrote an open letter to the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke urging him to take action.

John Ryley wrote that the public would have better understood controversial sentences passed on those involved in recent rioting and looting if judges’ remarks had been televised.

Broadcasters have been pressing for some years for cameras to be allowed into courts, but at present cameras – including video cameras – are banned from courts in England and Wales by section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925.

The one exception is the Supreme Court where, for the past two years, cameras have been allowed to film proceedings. The new rules are likely to start by allowing cameras into the Court of Appeal and ‘may’ be extended to Crown Court trials in future.