Waiting time

Sir Cliff v The BBC overran by one day, and the case has now been adjourned to 8 May 2018 when closing legal submissions will be made. The Sun's comment page has provided BBC QC Gavin Millar with some support, with an article from Mick Hume, editor-at-large of spiked-online.com, and once described as 'Britain's only libertarian Marxist newspaper columnist'.

"The right to report such investigations is vital in a fair and transparent system. Demands for more anonymity for suspects are the enemy of open justice.

"The bigger principle at stake concerns the public’s right to know — and not just about what celebrities are allegedly up to. More importantly, it is about our right to know what the police are doing. A judge-made privacy law which bans reporting of search warrants would also protect the police from public scrutiny.

"Who would want to live in a society where officers could raid homes and pursue suspects in secret? Is that not what we used to call a police state?

"Privacy and data protection laws are the new weapons deployed by the rich and powerful in Britain to silence their critics.

"We might all know that the pop veteran’s only crime was to release Millennium Prayer."