Broadcast traumatic court cases on TV, says judge

 
25 October 2012
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A judge has called for traumatic court scenes to be broadcast on television to highlight the devastation caused by road deaths.

Judge Peter Jacobs was speaking after he jailed a 19-year-old woman over a crash in Norfolk which killed her friend.

Eleanor Coleman was jailed yesterday for admitting causing death by careless driving and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Along with her family and that of victim Ellie Tweed, 18, she wept openly at Norwich Crown Court as the sentence was passed.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Jacobs said he did not think it was generally a good idea to broadcast court proceedings because "court isn't theatre".

But he added: "The one case would be if you televised sentences. But even in those cases I wouldn't be in favour of it, especially sexual offences.

"But in this particular case, I think people need to see the effect that death has - the effect that road accident deaths have.

"It's traumatic. You have got the grieving relatives. You have often got the defendant in the dock who wishes it had never happened or in other cases a truly dreadful defendant who has a series of previous convictions.

"I do think people need to see the trauma of cases like this."

Coleman, of Runham, near Great Yarmouth, was driving with Miss Tweed and three other teenage girls in her car when she crashed into the back of a lorry.

The five friends had been on a Halloween night out in Norwich and were returning home early on November 1 last year when she crashed in a layby on the A47.

A statement from Coleman, read out in court, said: "I hate myself for everything that has happened and I will never forgive myself."

Filming in courts is currently banned by two Acts of Parliament.

In September last year, the then justice secretary Kenneth Clarke said television cameras should be allowed into criminal courts in England and Wales.

No timescale was given for the plan to broadcast footage of the judge's sentencing remarks in the Court of Appeal, eventually expanding to crown courts.

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