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Details of history’s most high profile court cases – from Ted Bundy, to OJ Simpson, to Donald Trump and Dominique Pelicot – were brought into the public domain thanks to the diligent and difficult work of court reporters.
Court reporting is a skilled branch of journalism, taught as a discipline in itself. Ideally, court reporters can write at at least 100 words a minute shorthand (we speak at around 150 words a minute during normal conversation). In the UK, it is against the law to use an audio recorder in court, unless permission is granted by a judge.
Court reporters must have detailed legal knowledge of reporting restrictions (which is often applied on the spot), along with awareness of defamation law, ensuring content is fair and accurate so publications aren’t sued.
But court reporting in the UK is under threat, largely due to the decline of regional press, where the majority of specialist court reporters work.
It is not a job for the fainthearted. Murder, rape, stabbings, child sexual abuse, fraud, drugs, guns, robbery and terrorism are all part of the murky swamp of the court reporter’s daily beat. Court journalists listen to horrific details, and must be able to put aside their own feelings and emotions to report all the evidence – no counselling is offered.
Journalists covering the Lucy Letby case admitted crying during the evidence, or having to run to the toilet to retch. The Daily Mail’s Liz Hull, a seasoned court reporter, attended every day of the trial for her award-winning podcast. She wrote that she cried in court for the first time in her 25 years as a journalist during family statements in the sentencing hearing.
Last year, Le Monde reporters Henri Seckel and Pascale Robert-Diard spent 48 days in a courtroom in Avignon, France, reporting on the trial of Dominique Pelicot and the other men accused of raping his wife Gisèle. They watched videos of the sordid attacks and listened to details of the case day after day, saying: “Every day, we thought we’d seen and heard the worst. But the worst was worse the next day.”
Open justice
The work of court reporters is crucial to maintaining “open justice”. This concept, which dates back to a 1913 divorce hearing, established the principle that justice should be done in public. Journalists are allowed to report from court hearings, and members of the public can observe criminal trials.
The publicity puts pressure on witnesses to tell the truth, helps quell false rumours about cases, and can lead to other victims coming forward or new evidence being uncovered.
As Sian Harrison and Gill Phillips write in McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists: “Reporting of cases helps promote public confidence in the justice system. It deters inappropriate behaviour on the part of the court and full reporting promotes the values of the rule of law.”
It is often a battle for reporters to get details from courts about cases and erroneous reporting restrictions are sometimes made which go against the principle of open justice. Court reporters have to be persistent and more cases are being heard in private.
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