Court on camera: Clive Coleman writes in The Times

In an article published in The Times, Senior Partner Clive Coleman assesses the success of cameras in our courts following almost a year of televised sentencing in major Crown Court cases.

Clive, the BBC’s former Legal Correspondent, explains how the arguments for televising the courts were fought and won. He also considers whether filming the judge’s sentencing of criminals such as serial rapist and former Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick, has succeeded in deepening public understanding of the criminal justice system.

With many seeing the sentencing in a 14 second clip as part of an evening news report, has the exercise been useful in opening up the courts and de-mystifying the complex process of sentencing, or has it been something of a damp squib?

Clive details how the full sentencing remarks can be accessed via the Sky News – Courts TV channel and elsewhere, and how they live on as an invaluable permanent record for the public, law students, aspiring lawyers and judges. He also posits how the successful experiment in filming, currently limited to seeing the judge alone while sentencing, might be extended to – for example – closing arguments from Prosecution and Defence counsel.

Read Clive’s article in The Times, here.