Talk:Peter Tobin

Content temporarily deleted; DO NOT DISCUSS CASES OR HISTORY OF THIS PERSON HERE. Content is sub judice.

edit request

Please add {{subst:longcomment}} to this page. Thanks. --Closedmouth (talk) 07:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done --El on ka 20:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of full article?

Deleting the full page seems to be a little too much - more than is needed - I came here to read based on a news story (not linked in order to comply with the request above). It seems that even if the matter is sub judice, information unrelated to the current event would be relevant and I don't see how they would violate the order.

Furthermore - a comment that information about the current case is not being added as sub judice seems appropriate, and a link to current policy on why this article is protected would prevent questions like mine :)

Finally, can someone help me understand the issues with fully deleting it - if the above can not be done, given that a British court has no jurisdiction over me and any text I may post here - personally, I can see doing it just as a prudent way of dealing with the issue, and taking an m:Eventualist attitude, but a better solution would be to limit the article, to explain why no current information and be eventualist about that later info - Thanks --Trödel 18:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I accept that there are complications and options in such a matter, over what and whether to accede to requests from a court. In this case, I was approached by an Police Officer, acting on behalf of the court, that there were very strong reasons why this article (and its caches, which were being dealt with separately) should not be available for the duration of the case. After making confirmatory checks that the officer was 'real' and acting correctly (both true) I considered his request and, specifically, that it was strongly felt that should this article remain in place then the court action could be thrown out. Now, as other media coverage has noted, there is a very serious charge against this individual and given that there is a lot of history about him in this article I concurred that in the best interests of justice it would be very much preferable if the content was removed temporarily.

I did consider solely removing some content but it was quickly obvious that that was not possible, there being no unrelated information: the presence or absence of past events regarding a person before a court are not admissible in evidence and disclosure is not permitted in any manner, which was the prime issue here.

As such I deleted the article and created the temporary holding page. Please note that *none* of the previous content is permanently deleted and it will all be recovered - with history and no doubt updated - once the case is concluded. In terms of jurisdiction, this is a matter before the Scottish court (so a different legal system to the rest of Great Britain) and, whilst I accept fully that many WP users are not within the remit of that court I am certain that no WP user would like a court case to collapse and the party charged with a serious crime to not to have to answer for the charge because we had an article which contained information that could be held to be prejudicial to the Crown's case (or, indeed, the defendant's). My view was that WP should not block such legal action by the presence of an article where it could be safely and securely deleted for the term of the case. --AlisonW (talk) 22:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds reasonable - maybe we should have a better explanation though, something like, "Peter Tobin is currently on trial in Scotland for xxx.[ref] As a result of the court's request further information about Tobin is not currently available but will be restored once the current allegation is resolved." I don't see how the court can object to listing the current crime since that is being widely reported (by BBC news at least) and would explain things a little better --Trödel 22:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a very restricted statement like that could be made, however (a) I was very concerned about what might and might not be considered 'safe', and (b) to have any article, even a bare-bones one, would implicitly invite other editors to expand the content (possible daily following news reports) and lead to the exact issues I was trying to safeguard against. As such I felt that my approach was safest for the time being. --AlisonW (talk) 09:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]