What's Happened In The Cliff Richard Case Against The Bbc? Anything?

[10ClarionSt]

I just googled it and it's all stuff from ages ago. What am I doing wrong?

[douglas9401]

Nighthawks.

[Ellipsis]

> I don't think anyone should be named unless/until they have been found guilty of a crime

I agree, but if you took that to its natural conclusion then nobody would be any the wiser about Jimmy Savile - he was never found guilty of a crime.

The main problem with what the Beeb did re: Cliff was that, following Savile where they didn't do much to bring him to justice when they could have, the fact that they went so overboard on Cliff coverage suggested that they knew he was guilty.

[jno]

andy, it's not in dispute that the police tipped the BBC off. That's why the police have paid damages. None the less, all the BBC did was cover the raid. Doing it with a hellicopter is neither morally nor legally different from doing it with a quill pen on parchment.

A police raid on a popular singer is legitimate news in anyone's book, just as, for instance, the arrest of Rolf Harris was. Rolf was guilty, Cliff was innocent - but we only know this with hindsight, and hindsight is no basis for justice.

[Gromit]

It doesn’t really hold that reporting that the Police were searching his home was an invasion of his privacy. He wasn’t even home, he was in Portugal.
The police did not find anything incriminating, but the BBC never said they would, or had.
While celebrity news is mostly trivial, a case where the police were investigating a serious crime is not trivial and is newsworthy and in the public interest to report on it.

[Bathsheba]

But what would Ch5 make programmes about then?
~Baths~

[andy-hughes]

jno - // A police raid on a popular singer is legitimate news in anyone's book, just as, for instance, the arrest of Rolf Harris was. //

I disagree.

My entire point, and indeed Sir Cliff's legal action, is based not on the fact that his home was raided by the police, but that it was filmed by helicopter by the BBC, which only occurred because he is Sir Cliff Richard.

That means that the BBC are deciding what is news on the basis of a person's level of celebrity, and that is when the news ceases to be the news.

It is the invasion of privacy on the basis of Sir Cliff's celebrity, which means he was subject to intrusion he would not have received had he not been famous, that forms the basis of his action.