Retired High Court judge at time of Inquiry, who had specialised in intellectual property, copyright, privacy and defamation cases. A specialist adviser to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, he advised the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on its Report on Press Standards, Privacy and Libel. Sir Charles was also the founder of Early Resolution, an organisation set up to help litigants locked in libel disputes resolve differences quickly, fairly and at low cost. His Inquiry evidence on Early Resolution broadened into discussion of an Early Resolution model becoming the basis for a post-publication regulatory system with statutory foundation. Sir Charles also served as adjudicator in lawsuits against News Group Newspapers brought by people whose phones were hacked by the group.
Early Resolution CIC was set up as a not-for-profit company by Sir Charles Gray, retired high-court libel judge, and Alastair Brett, former legal manager of The Times and Sunday Times, to help litigants locked in libel disputes resolve differences quickly, fairly and cost-effectively.
British lawyer and member of Doughty Street Chambers in London, practising criminal law since 1986 and appointed Queen's Counsel in 2010. Writes a blog, Nothing Like the Sun, subtitled "an occasional blog on legal and other matters that interest me", and gave evidence on the ethics of blogging.
British lawyer, judge and academic. Sir Stephen was appointed a High Court judge in 1992, serving in the Queen's Bench Division. In 1999 he was appointed to the Court of Appeal as a Lord Justice of Appeal. In written evidence, he told the Inquiry that Britain could boast some of the best investigative journalism in the world and also some of the most intrusive and foul-mouthed newspapers in the world. He proposed for consideration a statutory printed-media regulator governed by Parliament and designed to be inquisitorial rather than adversarial. There was now, he said, a powerful case for regulation and that litigation and self-regulation were not working.
