Move to outlaw witness payments

The acquittal of Amy Gehring and the revelation that she faced similar accusations at another Surrey school will provide fresh impetus to moves to crack down on media payments to witnesses in court cases.

The lord chancellor, Lord Irvine, plans to issue a consultation paper early next month on reforms to the Contempt of Court Act 1981, which will tackle payments to witnesses, subversion of witnesses and pre-trial publicity.

Tabloid offers of payment to witnesses to tell their stories are a gift to defence lawyers, who invariably portray them as inducements to embroider their tales or lie in a bid to increase the rewards on offer.

Last week boy witnesses at Ms Gehring's trial were called back to the box after it emerged they had been offered money for their stories. One boy, now 16, admitted that his family had agreed a deal about his allegations that he had had sex with the 26-year-old biology teacher. He said the agreement was with the Sunday People and the Mail on Sunday and was worth £10,000. The teenager, now a sixth-form college student, admitted at Guildford crown court via a videolink that he had joked to a friend before the trial about making "millions" by selling his story.

Another boy, who was approached outside court and at his home, told defence counsel Andrew Thompson his family had agreed a minimum £10,000 deal with the Daily Mail for their story.

His older brother was alleged to have had sex with Gehring three times, but he insisted that no agreement had been made to sell the story.

Five other teenagers who socialised with Ms Gehring said they had been approached by journalists and three of them had agreed deals worth up to £10,000. All the witnesses insisted they had not been approached before giving evidence and that their testimony had not been influenced by the prospect of selling their stories.

Concerns about media offers influencing witnesses to tailor their testimony date back to the 1979 trial of the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe for conspiracy to murder. During the trial it emerged that a key witness, Peter Bessell, had been offered £25,000 for his story by the Sunday Telegraph if Mr Thorpe was acquitted and double that amount if he was convicted.

Payment of witnesses for stories was outlawed by press complaints commission rules after the 1995 murder trial of Rosemary West. The PCC confirmed yesterday that it would investigate the Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail and Sunday People over the Gehring case.

Lord Irvine said last year that he would tackle the problem by legislation when time became available: "Payments to witnesses, or potential witnesses, by the media run a real risk of encouraging witnesses to exaggerate their evidence to make it more newsworthy or to withhold relevant evidence from the court and make it available as an exclusive to a newspaper. If the existence of a media contract emerges in court, juries may wonder if the witness's evidence has been affected."