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Psychiatry, the law and the media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Louis Blom-Cooper*
Affiliation:
QC, Chairman, Mental Health Act Commission
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When the Liverpool Daily Post, its sister paper, the Liverpool Echo, and the Daily Mail published inflammatory material about a restricted patient at Park Lane Special Hospital (now Ashworth (North) Special Hospital) their editors were strongly warned by the House of Lords that they would be well advised to exercise greater care in future, that they did not overstep the mark and find themselves in contempt of court. The newspapers won their appeal because the law allowed them to report the fact that a restricted patient had applied to a Mental Health Review Tribunal for his discharge, the date and place of the hearing of the application and any order made discharging the patient, absolutely or conditionally. But the law does not give the papers carte blanche to comment on a case in order to mount a campaign of public protest against the patient's release.

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Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1991
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