The contract has now been permanently extended to the Crown Court. Sky, the BBC, ITN and the Press Association can apply for film and broadcast condemnation statements, with the judge deciding whether to grant the request.
The first parole hearings could be heard in public
Thursday’s televised hearing comes as it emerged that a killer of a wife convicted despite her body never being found could be the first in legal history to publicly hear his plea for parole. Russell Causley, who was sentenced to life in prison for murdering the mother of his child Carole Packman, will go before the parole board in October to ask to be released from prison. The board revealed on Wednesday that it was considering an application for the hearing to be held in public under the new rules introduced by Mr Raab. It means victims, the public and the press will be able to watch the hearing where the three-member board determines whether Causley is no longer a danger to the public and can be released. Causley, now in his late 70s, was one of the first people in the UK to be convicted of murder without a body in 1996. That conviction was overturned in 2003, until a retrial the following year found him guilty again. He was jailed for life for murdering Ms Packman after she disappeared in 1985 – a year after taking his lover to their Bournemouth home. Only one other application is being considered, by Charles Bronson, one of the UK’s longest-serving and most notorious prisoners, who has formally asked for the next Parole Board hearing to be heard in public. It is expected that any parole hearing will be broadcast live in a separate building where family, press and the public can watch it. Some parts could be kept private if they include sensitive personal information about the crime or the perpetrator.
