Think twice before you tweet about Greenwood

Victoria Richards, The Independent

Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has been arrested on suspicion of rape and assault, following allegations made against him on social media.

Greater Manchester Police said yesterday that it was made aware “of online images and videos posted by a woman reporting incidents of physical violence”. Greenwood has been suspended from Man Utd for the time being.

I’m not going to write about the case, or anybody who might have been involved. But I will explain why — and if you’ve been tempted to tweet about it, you might want to listen. I spoke to our team of lawyers at The Independent, who told me that once a case is “active” — which means an arrest has been made — anyone tweeting about what they believe happened is at risk of prosecution.

This could involve either a prison sentence ranging from 35 days to two years (and a criminal record), or a £5000 fine. And it doesn’t just apply to journalists, either, but anyone on Twitter or other social media. What’s more, you don’t even have to have written a damning tweet yourself — the simple act of retweeting something that is later found to be in contempt of court, or that breaches the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act of 1992 (more on that, later) is seen as an act of publication and risks the exact same penalties.

Prejudicing a trial, can, and does happen — and no one is immune; not even politicians. In December 2020, a tweet from the home secretary Priti Patel about the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants — in which she said the migrants died “at the hands of ruthless criminals” — led to a pause in the trial. The judge had to warn jurors to ignore comments from politicians.

And being found “in contempt of court” (for more information, see here), might sound old-fashioned, but if you tweet about someone’s “blatant guilt” and share your opinions as to why you feel they’ve done whatever they’ve been accused of — especially if it gets a lot of “shares” or “likes” — it could be deemed as unfairly influencing a court case.It may stop somebody from getting a fair trial, and could even get a case thrown out without being heard.

Chances are, if you’re moved enough to tweet about someone’s alleged actions, it’s likely you feel strongly about them and want to see justice being served. The last thing you’d want to happen is for the case to get dismissed because of your tweet — right? So, statements such as, “he’s clearly guilty”, “she did it” or “it’s obvious” should always be left in draft.

There’s another important point to make here, which is that anyone who makes an allegation of rape or sexual assault has an automatic right to anonymity, under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act of 1992. The only way a person can agree to be identified is through a written waiver. If you name (or even hint) about the identity of an alleged victim without their written consent, you could be liable to prosecution.

Now, moving to Greenwood: as it currently stands, he has been arrested but not charged with any crime. That means that any discussion about what may or may not have happened is, as previously mentioned, at risk of the “the strict liability rule” of the Contempt of Court Act of 1981, which states that you must not publish anything which could cause a “substantial risk of serious prejudice to the administration of justice”.

This kicked in from the moment he was arrested — before that, anything written about Greenwood was at risk of being considered defamatory, but not contempt. But now it is. It can be hard on social media to forget that what we write has actual, real-life consequences; that what we send off into the ether can affect not only other people, but potentially the course of justice itself.

So, before sending off our rants online, we’d do well to remind ourselves of the risks – and be very, very careful what we tweet.