Internet providers get legal protection against vigilantes

By TERRI JUDD

LONDON - The danger of vigilantes publicly identifying the two boys who killed toddler James Bulger was highlighted yesterday when a British internet service provider obtained legal protection from the High Court.

Demon Internet, one of Britain's largest ISPs, wanted to ensure it would not be held accountable if someone disclosed the new identities of Jon Venables or Robert Thompson on one of its servers without its knowledge.

Thompson and Venables were 10 when they abducted two-year-old James from a Merseyside shopping centre in February 1993. They dragged him to a nearby railway line where they tortured and killed him. They were released last month on life licences after Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf effectively ended their tariff - the minimum period they must spend in custody - last October, saying it would not benefit them to enter the "corrosive atmosphere" of a young offenders' institution.

Venables and Thompson were granted anonymity in January when Family Division President Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said there was a risk their lives would be in danger otherwise. Yet there has always been a fear that someone could get round the High Court ruling, which applies in England and Wales, by means of a foreign internet site.

Yesterday the open-ended injunction safeguarding the killers' anonymity was amended to protect internet companies from being prosecuted if they take "all reasonable steps" to prevent publication of their new identities.

Even before their release last month, there were rumours that vigilantes were proposing to illegally publish a recent closed-circuit television picture photograph of Thompson, taken during a shopping trip with care workers.

Demon went to the High Court yesterday to argue that it would be unfair if internet service providers (ISPs) were automatically found to be in contempt, even if they were unable to prevent the disclosure of banned material.

Lady Bulter-Sloss agreed to alter the injunction to give the company a measure of protection should contemptuous material be posted on its web pages. She approved alterations - agreed by Demon and lawyers acting for Venables as well as the Attorney-General - which stated that the ISP would not be in breach of the injunction unless it, its employees or agents knew that the material had been placed, or was likely to be placed, on its servers or could be accessed via its service and failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the publication.

They would be expected to take all reasonable steps to find out what was being posted on its servers.

Demon Internet became one of the first ISPs to be sued for defamation in March last year, when scientist Laurence Godfrey complained about defamatory remarks made about him in a posting on a newsgroup.

He notified Demon but nothing was done and the company settled before trial, paying damages and costs of £475,000.

Under English law, a defence of "innocent dissemination" is available to bookshops and printers who are unaware their wares are defamatory. This defence, however, is not available where a provider is warned a message is libellous and fails to remove it.

Yesterday the company said: "We fully appreciate the seriousness of the issues dealt with in the injunction and fully support the law in this matter.

Thompson and Venables were 10 when they abducted two-year-old James from a Merseyside shopping centre in February 1993. They dragged him to a nearby railway line where they tortured and killed him. They were released last month on life licences after Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf effectively ended their tariff - the minimum period they must spend in custody - last October, saying it would not benefit them to enter the "corrosive atmosphere" of a young offenders' institution.

- INDEPENDENT