Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

The hon. Gentleman makes an important observation. However, I wonder whether he is being too pessimistic. Is he aware of evidence from academic studies about the problem of the way in which media commentary can influence the decision-making of a jury trial? It shows that members of a jury are more sophisticated than some of the assumptions underlying his remarks suggest. They appear to be able to distinguish between media comment and their role as jury members. If we were confident that that was the case, rather than hoping against hope—and our better judgment—that we could put the genie back into the media bottle, should we not consider revising the rules to allow reality to play itself out?