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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Scottish, Irish papers name UK minister Susan Cornwell Reuters Friday 02 Jan 1998 on Friday named the British cabinet minister whose teenage son was arrested for alleged drug dealing, while a London tabloid said it would appeal an English court ban on identifying the boy. The British government said, however, that it was still constrained by the law in England from naming the Labour minister whose 17-year-old son was alleged to have sold a small quantity of cannabis to a reporter for The Mirror. The fuss over identifying the minister appeared ever more bizarre. British television reported that newspapers had named him -- without actually repeating the name -- and broadcast scenes of the Scottish papers rolling off the presses without getting close enough for viewers to read the fine print. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ As a news organisation publishing in England and subject to English law, Reuters cannot name the cabinet minister involved in this case. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ However, Irish radio, which can be heard in parts of Britain, read the minister's name aloud in its summary of morning newspapers. The Scottish Daily Mail, The Scotsman and The Daily Record all named the minister on Friday, and The Irish Independent identified the minister in a story about how the Scottish papers had named him. Evening newspapers in four Scottish cities followed suit. Explaining their decision, the newspapers and their executives said that millions of people could already get the name on the Internet and it was well known among members of the British media and the political classes. ``The situation has rapidly descended into farce,'' Terry Quinn, the editor of The Daily Record, was reported saying in his newspaper. ``It is time this whole story was out in the open so the public can make up its own mind.'' On Tuesday Attorney-General John Morris, a government colleague of the minister, won a court injunction barring the Mirror's main rival, The Sun, from naming the teenager and his father. But a spokesman for The Daily Record said the injunction did not apply in Scotland, and neither did an English law banning the identifying of alleged offenders under the age of 18. ``The one restriction that we had was that we do sell quite a numbers of copies of our first edition south of the border (in England) and we had to be sure that we didn't carry it in those editions,'' he told Reuters by telephone from Glasgow. The Sun, which originally said it would not appeal the court injunction against publishing the minister's name, said on Friday that it intended to appeal. The British government said papers outside England and Wales were free to identify the minister, but that he could not identify himself. `He (the minister) would like to be able to (reveal his identity), but he is constrained by the same law as everybody else,'' a Downing Street spokesman said. ``The law is there not to protect him, but to protect his son.'' A spokesman for the minister said he was not commenting on the matter to anyone, including the outlets that named him. The cabinet member has said he is profoundly frustrated because the law bans him from speaking out. The saga has caused profound embarrassment to a government that takes a tough line on drugs. The Mirror's reporter, Dawn Alford, has also been arrested and released on bail after she went voluntarily to a London police station. Media reports say detectives are recommending that the teenager either be cautioned or face no action at all -- the normal course in minor drugs cases in Britain. A prosecutors' spokeswoman said no decision on whether to prosecute the minister's son was expected before next week. A French newspaper, France Soir, has also named and pictured the minister, devoting two full broadsheet columns to the case and saying withholding the name is ``typical British hypocrisy.''
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