Restrictions on Public Attendance at Youth Court

• Under section 47 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, attendance at Youth Court proceedings is limited to: members and officers of the court, parties, their legal representatives, witnesses and other persons directly concerned in the case, bona fide representatives of a news-gathering or reporting organisation and such other persons as the court may specially authorise to be present. The Home Office/Lord Chancellor’s Circular Opening Up Youth Court Proceedings provides guidance on issues which the court might wish to consider in making use of its discretionary powers.
• Under section 37 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, such bona fide media representatives have the right to remain in court, alongside the others specified, even if the public or others are excluded during the taking of evidence from a witness who is a child or young person, in any proceedings relating to an offence against, or any conduct contrary to decency or morality.
• The position after the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 comes into force is set out below:

Restrictions on reporting Youth Court proceedings

a) Pre-commencement of criminal proceedings

Until the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 comes into effect, apart from the automatic restrictions on identification of complainants of sexual offences, there are no specific automatic reporting restrictions which prevent reporting or identification of children and young persons who are the subject of criminal investigations but not the subject of criminal proceedings, either before the adult Magistrates’ Court or the Youth Court. However, automatic restrictions on the identification of children and young persons will affect reporting once they are involved in Youth Court proceedings, but not proceedings before the adult courts. All the self-regulatory and statutory Codes and guidelines which govern the media provide special protection for children and young persons (see Code of Practice upheld by the Press Complaints Commission, BBC Producer Guidelines, ITC Programme Code, Radio Authority Programme Code). If legal proceedings are pending or imminent or have become active, the media is also constrained by the law of contempt (both at common law and under the Contempt of Court Act 1981).

• When the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 comes into effect, there will be automatic restrictions on the identification of alleged young offenders. However, its restrictions on identification of young victims and witnesses cannot be implemented save by an order laid by the Secretary of State and approved by a resolution in each House of Parliament following debate. They will not automatically come into force when a commencement date is designated for the restrictions on identification of alleged young offenders. The Government is keeping the case for implementation under review. In either case, the automatic prohibitions end on commencement of legal proceedings, when section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, as amended by the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 will apply to Youth Court proceedings only.
• Children and young persons involved in criminal proceedings, whether as accused, witnesses or victims and who appear before Magistrates’ Courts other than the Youth Court and before other criminal courts are not subject to automatic reporting restrictions. The court has the discretion to make an order prohibiting their identification, if there is good reason to do so, currently under section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. Once the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 comes into effect, section 39 orders will only apply to civil proceedings and a new power under section 45 of the new Act will be available to the criminal courts, save where section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 applies.

b) Commencement of Youth Court Proceedings – automatic reporting restrictions

• Section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 imposes automatic restrictions on the identification of children and young persons involved in Youth Court proceedings. There are statutory provisions which give the Youth Court discretion to lift the restrictions.
• Under section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, no report can be published which reveals the name, address or school of any child or young person concerned in the Youth Court proceedings, or includes any particulars likely to lead to the identification of any such child or young person so concerned in the proceedings. Pictures of such persons are also prohibited. These restrictions apply to publication in newspapers or inclusion in programme services. A child or young person is concerned in any proceedings if (s)he is the person against or in respect of whom the proceedings are taken or a witness in the proceedings. (Section 49 will be amended by the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 when this comes into effect, see below.)
• These prohibitions apply to proceedings in Youth Courts and to proceedings for varying and revoking supervision orders under sections 15 and 16 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, and to appeals arising out of both such sets of proceedings, including by way of case stated. However, the prohibitions will only apply to any proceedings under sections 15 and 16 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 before a Magistrates’ Court other than a youth court, or appeals from such a court, if that Magistrates’ Court or the appellate court announces in the course of proceedings that section 49 applies to those proceedings.
  Contravention of the reporting restrictions is an offence, punishable on summary conviction by a level 5 fine. Proprietors, editors and publishers of newspapers and broadcasting companies and staff with functions equivalent to a newspaper editor are liable.
  The court has a wide discretion to lift the reporting restrictions. Section 49 (5)-(8) sets out the circumstances in which it may do so, prior to and irrespective of any conviction. Section 49(4) sets out the circumstances after conviction.
• Under section 49(5), a court, including a single justice, may by order dispense with the restrictions, to any specified extent, if it is satisfied that it is appropriate to do so for the purposes of avoiding injustice to the child.
• Reporting restrictions can also be lifted to assist a search for a missing, convicted or alleged young offender where the under 18 year old is charged with, or convicted of, a violent or sexual offence, or one punishable in the case of an over 21 year old offender by imprisonment of 14 years or more. If an application has been made by, or on behalf of the DPP and notice has been given to the child’s or young person’s legal representative, the court, including a single justice, may, if necessary, dispense with the requirements for the purpose of apprehending such a child or young person who is unlawfully at large and bringing him before the court or returning him to custody (section 49(5)-(7)).
• The Youth Court also has the power to order the lifting of the reporting restrictions to any extent, in relation to a child or young person who has been convicted, if it is satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. The child or young person may therefore be identified in relation to any proceedings related to the prosecution or conviction of the offender for the offence, the manner in which he or his parent or guardian should be dealt with in respect of the offence, the enforcement, variation, revocation or discharge of an order made in respect of the offence, the enforcement of any rule made under section 16(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 1982 in respect of an attendance centre order or the enforcement of any requirements relating to detention and training orders under section 76 (6)(b) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
• The court has to offer the parties an opportunity to make representations and take these into account before lifting the restrictions.
• The Joint Home Office/Lord Chancellor’s Department Circular June 1998, Opening up the Youth Court provides some guidance and examples of instances where the Youth Court could consider its exercise of its discretion to dispense with the restrictions. It suggests that lifting the restrictions might be particularly appropriate where the nature of the young person’s offending is persistent or serious or has impacted on a number of people or his local community in general; or where alerting others to his behaviour would help prevent further offending. The courts have also given some consideration to the factors that should be taken into account. This guidance is repeated in the Youth Court 2001 – The Changing Culture of the Youth Court: Good Practice Guide published by the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor’s Department in March 2001.
• When the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 comes into effect, section 49 will be slightly amended (see section 48, and Schedule 2),as follows:
  • the automatic prohibition on identification of a young person concerned in the proceedings will only apply until the 18th birthday of the young person concerned;
  • the particulars listed which might identify the child or young person are not prohibited from publication per se; publication of the youth’s name, address, school or other educational establishment, workplace, still or moving picture is an offence only if likely to lead members of the public to identify the young person as a person against or in respect of whom the proceedings are taken, or a person called, or proposed to be called to give evidence in the proceedings;
  • publication in contravention of the prohibition is an offence, punishable on summary conviction with a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale. Those liable include newspaper and periodical proprietors, editors and publishers, publishers of other publications and broadcasting companies and those with functions equivalent to editors in respect of identifying matters included in programme services (picture includes a likeness however produced);
  • the accused has a defence that at the time of the alleged offence he was not aware, and neither suspected nor had reason to suspect, that the publication contained the matter in question.
• See also 3.6 below, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.