\n<\/p>\n
The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has suggested that her Tory counterpart, Robert Jenrick, was guilty of \u201crisking the collapse of trial\u201d, after he was criticised in court for tweeting about a criminal case.<\/p>\n
Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, posted on social media about a murder trial a week after it had begun, making comments that the judge said were \u201cill thought through\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Liverpool Echo reported that Jenrick\u2019s tweet, described as \u201cappalling, outrageous and egregious\u201d by the defence counsel, was raised in court during the trial because of fears it could prejudice proceedings and amount to contempt of court<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, speaking to the House of Lords constitution committee about the rule of law, Mahmood said: \u201cI do think that it\u2019s incumbent on politicians of all stripes to play their part in maintaining the integrity of our system.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly, if a Labour politician, and somebody whose behaviour I could more directly influence through our party structures was, for example, risking the collapse of a trial, it [sic] would be repercussions.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeedless to say, no parliamentarian should be risking a contempt [of court] and the possibility of a murderer walking free.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Mahmood did not refer to Jenrick by name, her comments were clearly aimed at him, coming the day after the report in the Echo.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Elias Morgan was sentenced to a minimum term of 45 years for murder.<\/span> Photograph: Lancashire police\/PA Media<\/p>\n Writing about the trial of Elias Morgan for the murder of Lenny Scott, Jenrick was said to have written on a since-deleted post on X, on 1 July: \u201cLenny exposed corruption and took on the gangster controlling a prison wing. He received threats to his life, but he was left unsupported. Four years later he was shot dead. That will enrage any decent person. We need radical change, now.\u201d<\/p>\n His comments were raised in court, without the jury, by the prosecutor, Alex Leach KC, the following day, when he told Mr Justice Goose that \u201cthe post is problematic because it delivers as apparent fact what the prosecution relies upon\u201d. The prosecution took steps to have it taken down and it is no longer online.<\/p>\n Caroline Goodwin KC, representing the defendant, said that the post \u201cput political ambitions first and the requirements of justice second\u201d. She also said that Jenrick, a qualified solicitor, \u201cshould know better\u201d than to share a \u201chard-lined opinion\u201d about continuing proceedings, the Echo reported. She said: \u201cWe ask he reflects carefully as a shadow lord chancellor should. We ask he thinks and he refrains from commenting further.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Goose reportedly told the courtroom that there was a danger in commenting as Jenrick had and that \u201cthis was ill thought through given it\u2019s an ongoing trial\u201d.<\/p>\n On Friday, Morgan was found guilty of Scott\u2019s murder, which meant the concerns raised in court about Jenrick\u2019s comments could be reported. On Tuesday, Goose sentenced Morgan to a life term with a minimum term of 45 years.<\/p>\n Mahmood told the committee: \u201cThere are some very important rules that all politicians with their huge platforms should bear in mind. It will be an absolute travesty of justice if somebody walks away from a murder charge because of social media activities and the desire to have a viral tweet.\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardian has approached Jenrick for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has suggested that her Tory counterpart, Robert Jenrick, was guilty of \u201crisking the collapse of trial\u201d, after he was criticised in court for tweeting about a criminal case. Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, posted on social media about a murder trial a week after it had begun, making comments that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2345,9321,2282,4646,11738,2324,2412,3415,2131,11739],"class_list":{"0":"post-19184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-collapse","9":"tag-jenrick","10":"tag-justice","11":"tag-murder","12":"tag-risked","13":"tag-robert","14":"tag-secretary","15":"tag-suggests","16":"tag-trial","17":"tag-tweet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}