Judges order appeal into explosives case
By Terence Shaw, Legal Correspondent
JOHN BERRY, 54, who was released on parole last week after serving three and a half years of a six-year sentence for making explosive devices, is to have a new appeal hearing in his long-running legal battle to clear his name.
Three Court of Appeal judges headed by Lord Lane, the Lord Chief Justice, ruled yesterday that the court could entertain a request by Mr Baker, Home Secretary, for the case to be reviewed, despite its 1990 ruling that Berry, a Norfolk businessman and ex-Royal Marine, could not have his case reopened.
Lord Lane said another division of the court had then felt powerless to intervene and hear new grounds of appeal because the Lords restored Berry's conviction after an earlier successful appeal.
The difficulties in the case were caused by the Court of Appeal's earlier failure to rule on two of Berry's three grounds of appeal, said Lord Lane, but that did not preclude the Home Secretary from re-opening the case.
Berry, from Bramerton, Norfolk, was originally convicted at Chelmsford Crown Court in 1983 of making electronic timers for detonating bombs.
He had been tried jointly with another businessman, Jeffrey Smith, who was eventually cleared at a retrial.
Berry's conviction was quashed on a legal technicality by the Court of Appeal in early 1984, but later that year the House of Lords restored the conviction in allowing an appeal by the Crown.
He fled to Spain while on bail awaiting the House of Lords ruling but was returned to England in 1989 and resumed his sentence.
' Temple of the law is turning into a casino ' THE JASON DONOVAN LIBEL CASE: Damages award reinforces the need for reform, say lawyers
By Terence Shaw, Legal Correspondent
THE 200,000 damages awarded to Jason Donovan will be seen by many lawyers as another illustration of the urgent need for libel law reform.
The award was made despite one of the strongest warnings ever by a judge to a libel jury about excessive pay-outs.
It will lead to renewed demands that the judge should fix the amount of damages if a jury has decided that defamation has been proved or at least be given power to lay down minimum and maximum limits for juries.
Since the Court of Appeal judgment in the Sonia Sutcliffe case, when damages of 600,000 awarded to the wife of the Yorkshire Ripper against Private Eye were reduced by consent to 60,000, judges have been encouraged to give general guidance to juries.
Mr Justice Drake used this power to full in summing up in the Donovan case, warning the jurors that they should not think they had to ' fix sums with lots of noughts on the end because it's fashionable '.
He urged them to compare any sum they had in mind with damages that might be awarded for physical injuries that lasted a lifetime.
But he was not able to give any more specific guidance to the jury on how they should seek to compare the harm suffered by Donovan as a result of the libel with that suffered by those claiming damages in personal injury cases.
In his libel action seeking aggravated damages, Donovan claimed he suffered serious injury to his professional and personal reputation, considerable distress and embarrassment and that the article implied he was guilty of gross hypocrisy and deceit by denying that he was homosexual.
Donovan told the jury that he was not and never had been a homosexual.
His counsel, Mr Charles Gray, QC, suggested that the libel had damaged his reputation at a time when he was about to break into serious acting after a string of top 10 hits as a pop star and a stint in the Australian TV soap, Neighbours.
There is an accepted tariff of damages for personal injuries laid down on a case-to-case basis by judges.
But damages awarded by juries in libel cases for injury to reputation are ' at large ' and only subject to the general guidance by judges and limited powers for the Court of Appeal to correct those that are excessive.
One libel expert, Mr Geoffrey Robertson, QC, author of the leading textbook on Media Law, said after yesterday's verdict that huge awards were turning ' the temple of the law into a casino '.
Britain did not have free speech because of the libel laws, he said.
' It has expensive speech.
Most western democracies have laws which offer a better balance between freedom of expression and the right to reputation. '
A new media law package was needed to guarantee freedom of expression and information and to liberalise the libel and contempt laws, balanced by a law to protect unjustifiable invasion of privacy.
The key reform would be the introduction of a Bill of Rights with a free speech guarantee of the sort enjoyed by America and most European countries.
The libel laws should be changed to provide a ' fast track ' system allowing victims of media falsehoods to correct them quickly without having to wait a long time for their cases to go to court and gamble on the result.
' The only cases where heavy damages should be awarded are where the words have been published out of malice, ' said Mr Robertson.
Luxury life awaits private jail inmates
By Richard Savill
DUVETS, phonecards, hot showers and video films will greet inmates at Britain's first privately-run prison when it opens on Monday.
The Wolds, a remand centre at Brough, North Humberside, is far removed from the insanitary conditions which prevail at many jails.
The 320 inmates will be allowed out of their cells for 14 hours a day with a minimum of six hours education and 13 hours exercise a week.
The 32 million remand prison has 156 single and 72 shared cells, each with its own lavatory and washbasin.
Recreation areas have telephones and pool tables.
Nail clippers, combs, toothpaste and toothbrushes, razors and washbags are neatly laid out on tables in the cells to await the arrival of inmates, many of whom will not be carrying such items because they may not have expected to be remanded in custody.
' The cells are luxurious compared to some of the things we put up with in the Army, ' said one staff member during a Press tour of the jail.
The prison has a medical block with 24 beds and a gym with equipment that staff said would be the envy of many council leisure centres.
Group 4 Remand Services Ltd, the security firm selected by the Home Office to manage The Wolds in a 5 million-a-year contract, likes to think of its prisoners as customers.
' It may seem a little odd for prison staff to be looking at their prisoners as customers, but they are the direct consumers of our service, ' explained Mr Stephen Twinn, prison director, who spent 23 years in the public sector at various grades of prison governor.
The 60 male warders or ' custody officers' as they are called, wear a dapper outfit of black blazers, grey trousers, white shirts and grey tie.
Women managers have a choice as to whether they wear trousers or a skirt.
Name badges are worn by staff.
