Dear Prime Minister,
We write to you as people who have
experienced press abuses and who look to you to ensure that such
abuses are not inflicted on others in the future.
You made many promises on this issue in
2011-13, not only to us in private meetings but also publicly in
Parliament, under oath at the Leveson Inquiry and in the form of the
historic cross-party agreement on press self-regulation which you
signed as Prime Minister only three years ago.
You promised, for example, to ‘make doubly sure that we get to the bottom of what happened’ when press standards collapsed. You said:
‘What is absolutely vital is that we
put in place a regulatory system that they [the victims of press
abuse] can see has real teeth.’
You pledged:
‘The relationship between politicians
and the media must change.’
We want to express our frustration and
dismay that, five years on, these solemn promises have not been kept,
and we urge you to honour them now.
We were extremely disappointed last
October when the Culture Secretary said he was delaying indefinitely
one of the essential measures in the cross-party agreement –
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 – that was designed to
give independent press regulation ‘real teeth’ and was a key
recommendation of the Leveson Inquiry – one you said that you
accepted.
Worse, by delaying or shelving this
measure your government will deny the public the low-cost access to
justice that Leveson intended. Some of us know from experience how
daunting it is for an ordinary citizen to take a big newspaper
corporation to court for libel or invasion of privacy. In the
cross-party agreement you undertook to deliver this low-cost justice
through Section 40, but now it appears that you want to break that
promise.
We urge you to commence Section 40
without delay.
We have also been concerned to read,
through newspaper articles sourced from the Government, that you are
seeking to cancel the crucial second phase of the Leveson Inquiry.
Since this is meant to establish how lawbreaking took hold in our
press, why the police failed to stop it and who was responsible, we
need hardly say why this is of such vital public importance.
Not only did you promise that the
inquiry would get to the bottom of this lawbreaking, but you also
stated explicitly of Leveson 2:
‘It is right that it should go ahead
and that is fully our intention.’
We urge you now to remove any doubt by
confirming that the second phase of the Leveson Inquiry will go ahead
without fail once the last criminal trials have concluded.
Some of us wrote to you on some of
these issues in November, asking you either to act then or to meet us
face to face to explain your position. You declined to do either.
This amounts to another breach of promise, for in 2011 you declared:
‘We must at all times keep the
victims front and centre of this debate.’
Instead, you have met with newspaper
editors and proprietors on a regular basis. For example, between
June and December 2015 you met with Rupert Murdoch and his editors on
no fewer than seven occasions. Our request for a meeting with you
continues to be ignored.
At your suggestion some of us met on
24th March with the Culture Secretary. He refused to agree to the
implementation of the costs incentives by commencing section 40. Once
again, he was unable to give us any explanation as to why your
promises were being broken.
We believe that it is not just us whom
you are at risk of betraying, but Parliament, the public at large and
the future victims of a press industry which was condemned by Leveson
for ‘wreaking havoc in the lives of innocent people’. If your
promises are not kept, history tells us that newspapers will wreak
that havoc again.
It is not too late. Please honour your
promises.
We are copying this letter to the other
signatories of the cross-party agreement and to the leaders of the
other political parties in Parliament. We invite them to join us in
demanding that you keep the promises you made.
Yours,
Gerry & Kate McCann – victims of
intrusion and libel by many newspapers over many years
