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Article: Justice for sale: the Rosemary West trial.(murder case)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 25, 1995
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE grisly case in which Rosemary West, a Gloucester housewife, was found guilty on November 22nd of the murder of ten young women, including her 16-year-old daughter, was horrific enough. But for anyone who cares about justice, there was something else disturbing going on at Winchester Crown Court in addition to the grotesque accounts of butchery heard during the trial. Hundreds of thousands of pounds had been paid to more than 20 of the prosecution's witnesses by tabloid newspapers for exclusive rights to their stories even before they reached the stand, casting serious doubts on the credibility of their testimony.
Such cheque-book journalism flouts the code of ...