Ben Bradshaw – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Bradshaw on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Attorney General, what recent steps he has taken to promote awareness of the laws on contempt of court among social media users.

Mr Robert Buckland

Where appropriate the Attorney General and I publish online the warnings about potentially prejudicial reporting that Attorneys General had previously only given to the mainstream media. My office also sends tweets warning social media users of the risks of being in contempt of court.

In addition, the Attorney General has recently issued advice to social media users and others that identifying a victim in a sexual offence case is a criminal offence.

We continue to look at whether there is anything more that can be done to raise awareness in this area.