James v Robinson [1963] HCA 32

High Court of Australia Kitto, Taylor, Menzies, Windeyer and Owen JJ. James v Robinson [1963] HCA 32

ORDER Appeal allowed with costs. Discharge order of the Supreme Court and in lieu thereof order that the motion be dismissed with costs to be taxed on the higher scale set out in Appendix N of the Rules of the Supreme Court with certificates for second counsel and for two attendances to hear judgment and (if considered necessary by the Taxing Master) for a conference.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Aug. 8 Kitto, Taylor, Menzies and Owen JJ.

This is an appeal from an order of the Supreme Court of Western Australia which imposed penalties for contempt of court upon the appellants Western Press Limited (hereinafter called "the company") and Murray Willoughby James and directed that those appellants and the appellant Lionel John Toop pay the costs of the proceedings against them in which the penalties were imposed.

The company was at the material time the publisher, and the appellant Toop the printer, of the "Sunday Times", a weekly newspaper which was published in Perth and which had a circulation throughout Western Australia. The appellant James was the editor of the paper. It was proved that in two issues thereof on Sunday 10th February 1963 there was published an account of two killings by a "wild gunman" in Perth. The articles clearly identified Robinson as the gunman and it was related that after killing two named persons in public places and threatening others he had secreted himself in a pine plantation some twenty square miles in area not far from Perth. The articles purported to report the accounts of various eye witnesses and it was said that an intensive "manhunt" was in progress at the time of the publication of the newspapers. Each account commenced with a banner headline, the first being " two murdered by gunman at belmont " and the second, in even larger type, "2 murdered ". Each account featured some photographs and in the latter issue was a photograph of the respondent as the "hunted" man. It is, we think, unnecessary to refer to the reports in detail for subject to one question of law which was debated they were clearly contempts as was frankly admitted.