The Government has conducted a review of the Suicide
Act and said that it wants to make it clear that activity which is
illegal offline is also illegal online.
The Act currently says that it is an offence to "aid, abet,
counsel or procure" a suicide, though courts have ruled in the past
that the simple provision of information about committing suicide
would not open a publisher to prosecution.
Concerns have been widely expressed about the use of the
internet to disseminate information on how to commit suicide and
even to encourage people to do it.
"There is no magic solution to protecting vulnerable people
online," said justice minister Maria Eagle. "Updating the language
of the Suicide Act, however, should help to reassure people that
the internet is not a lawless environment and that we can meet the
challenges of the digital world."
"It is important, particularly in an area of such wide public
interest and concern, for the law to be expressed in terms that
everyone can understand," she said.
The Government said that it will work with other groups to
implement new laws.
"Later this year, the government will work with the UK Council
on Child Internet Safety to consider the practicalities of
restricting access to websites that are not in accordance with UK
law and how enforcement mechanisms can and should be applied to
online activity," said a Government statement.
Earlier this summer, Glasgow MP John Robertson called for
internet content to be regulated to tackle the encouragement of
suicide, amongst other things.
In a House of Commons debate begun by Robertson, Madeleine Moon,
MP for Bridgend, described some suicide-related sites as "truly
evil". Bridgend has been the location of a large number of recent
suicides by young people.
"[The sites] not only encourage, urge, assist and facilitate
people to take their lives, but distract especially youngsters from
finding the help, advice and guidance that would enable them to
live full and productive lives. We must find some way of monitoring
and closing them," said Moon in the debate.
Struan Robertson, a technology lawyer with Pinsent Masons, the
law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said that web publishers should not
wait for the law to change before taking steps to avoid comments on
their sites that encourage suicide.
"I would recommend that publishers who moderate all comments on
their forums or chat rooms should silence discussions that
encourage suicide, and sites that rely on others to complain about
material before they review it should take down such discussions if
complaints are received," said Robertson.
Coverage of suicide in the media was under attack this week.
Newspaper the Daily Sport was censured by the press regulator for
an article on suicide that was "gratuitous" and "excessive" and
broke its guidelines on the reporting of suicide.
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) said that the Daily Sport
breached its Code of Practice and glamourised suicide, opening up
the possibility of a risk of imitation suicides.
The paper had published an article detailing 10 places which
were frequent locations for suicides, after the British Transport
Police published details of a stretch of railway that had been the
location of 25 suicides in three years.
Called 'The top yourself 10', the piece referred to one location
as a 'well-known favourite for Britain's top-yourself tourists' and
pointed out explicitly to readers that there were a number of
options of how and where to commit suicide.
The PCC said that the Daily Sport claimed that the article was
"a fair and balanced factual report in the public interest, based
on information in the public domain". It ruled, though, that the
piece was "clearly excessive" and that "the light-hearted
presentation of the piece … may have glamorised suicide in the eyes
of some readers".
The ruling emphasised that responsible reporting of suicide and
of details surrounding a suicide is permitted.
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