Law changes gave Andrew Rosindell anonymity in rape arrest

After being told by the Met Police that he faced no further action, Mr Rosindell issued a statement saying he had been “completely exonerated”.

This decision by Mr Rosindell finally enabled the Recorder to report that he was the MP in question.

It was one of the worst-kept secrets in Britain.

For almost two years, we have received a stream of emails, letters and online posts criticising us for not reporting on the arrest or Mr Rosindell’s absence from the House of Commons.

But we could not respond to these messages for the same reason we could not report the story – we would have been breaking the law.

We knew within hours that Mr Rosindell was the arrested MP, but we were banned from telling our readers.

Ultimately, police did not even find enough evidence to merit referring Mr Rosindell's case to the Crown Prosecution Service. The Met decided for itself that there was no prospect of a conviction. 

So now we can explain why we were forced to keep our readers in the dark. 

The arrest followed a string of reports and rulings by the senior judiciary which have gradually changed the law to block the press from factually reporting on high-profile people under investigation.

The Leveson Report

From 2009, the Guardian’s investigative reporter Nick Davies produced a string of stories exposing phone-hacking at the News of the World.

His 2011 revelation that victims included murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler caused national fury.

The News of the World was shut and an inquiry was ordered, to be led by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, into the behaviour of the press.

Rupert Murdoch exits a meeting with the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The Guardian's revelation that the News of the World had hacked Milly's phone sparked the Leveson Inquiry, which later recommended anonymity before charge (Image: PA)

Among those who testified was Christopher Jefferies, an innocent man whose arrest over the murder of Joanna Yeates was widely reported, causing him great distress and hardship.

In his 2012 report, Mr Leveson called for restrictions on journalists’ ability to report on ongoing police investigations.

“Save in exceptional and clearly identified circumstances (for example, where there may be an immediate risk to the public), the names or identifying details of those who are arrested for or suspected of a crime should not be released to the press or public,” he wrote.

The Henriques Report

The Leveson Report was published just weeks after ITV revealed historic sexual abuse allegations against Jimmy Savile, sparking an outpouring of historic allegations against other famous people.

Among the complainants was a fantasist called Carl Beach, who falsely accused high-profile figures of torturing and murdering children.

Millions of pounds were spent investigating his lies. The names of those he had accused, such as Harvey Proctor, were leaked, despite the Leveson Report’s recommendation.

Harvey Proctor was falsely accused by fantasist Carl Beach of murdering children. Sir Richard Henriques was so disturbed by the way Mr Proctor and others were investigated that he called for anonymity before charge to be introduced (Image: PA)

Beach, himself a paedophile, was later jailed for 18 years for fraud and perverting the course of justice.

Retired High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques wrote a report about the scandal in 2016, referencing Leveson’s recommendations but calling for restrictions to go even further.

“Nobody is safe from false accusation and damaging exposure under present arrangements,” he wrote.

“I strongly believe that statutory protection of anonymity pre-charge is essential in a fair system.”

Cliff Richard

A privacy case brought by Sir Cliff Richard resulted in a precedent-setting legal ruling which mirrored Mr Henriques’s sentiment.

In 2014, the BBC had reported that Sir Cliff was under investigation for alleged historic sex offences.

He was later cleared by police and sued the BBC, saying it had breached his right to privacy.

The BBC said the report was factual and served the public interest, as it related to police activities and contributed to a huge, ongoing concern about alleged historic child abuse by VIPs.

In 2018, citing both the Leveson and Henriques reports, Mr Justice Mann ruled in Sir Cliff’s favour, despite acknowledging that this was “capable of having a significant impact on press reporting”.

The BBC said it effectively changed the law, marking “a dramatic shift against press freedom”.

This shift impacted both “local and national” press, the News Media Association warned.

Sir Cliff Richard brought a case against the BBC for identifying him as the subject of a historic sex abuse inquiry. The judgment effectively changed the law, banning the naming of people under criminal investigation (Image: PA)

The Bloomberg Case

But in February 2022, the precedent was reinforced by the UK Supreme Court.

Bloomberg News had named a businessman under investigation over alleged corruption and bribery.

He didn’t suggest that the story was untrue but sued on grounds that it breached his privacy.

Five judges agreed, ruling that, “a person under criminal investigation has, prior to being charged, a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of information relating to that investigation”.

Their judgment cited the Leveson and Henriques reports and the Cliff Richard judgment.

Bloomberg News’s editor-in-chief John Micklethwait wrote an article saying that bad reporting in a few cases had given the establishment an excuse to block good, factual journalism.

Dawn Alford, from the Society of Editors, warned of “a real risk that the bar is now so high for privacy cases that legitimate public interest journalism will go unreported.”

Romford MP Andrew Rosindell was arrested just months after the UK Supreme Court ruled that people under investigation could not be named unless they were charged (Image: Ken Mears)

Andrew Rosindell

Mr Rosindell was arrested three months after the Bloomberg ruling.

The Romford Recorder would have been breaking the law by reporting his arrest.

Last week, Harvey Proctor told the Recorder that Mr Rosindell’s protracted period on bail had left him trying to do his job with one arm tied behind his back.

But thanks to these legal precedents, so were the press. We were banned from naming the arrested MP – but press in other legal jurisdictions were not, meaning the news spread on social media while we were gagged.

Online posts using slurs that assumed Mr Rosindell’s guilt and making false assertions about his case were viewed by tens of thousands of people, while our award-winning editorial team – along with the rest of the press – were barred from publishing the facts.

“His name has been besmirched,” said Mr Rosindell’s long-time friend, London Assembly member Keith Prince. “He’s had all sorts of false accusations.”

Two national newspapers eventually defied the law and named Mr Rosindell. It remains to be seen whether he will take action and, if so, what the outcome will be.

They might argue that the public interest was overwhelming, as voters deserved to know why they had gone unrepresented in the Commons for more than a year.

That argument, if successful, would claw back some ground for factual, public interest journalism.

But based on recent history, there is no reason to think the courts would accept that argument – and if the Cliff Richard case is anything to go by, any newspaper that took that risk and lost would stand to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds.