http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/ ... 61,00.html
Damn, I was really looking forward to this one. Oh well, there is ways around it.Judge bans Underbelly TV drama indefinitely
Emily Power
February 12, 2008 12:05pm
CHANNEL 9 is expected to appeal against a decision to ban crime drama Underbelly from airing in Victoria until after a gangland murder trial.
A Supreme Court judge issued the extraordinary suppression order today after the Office of Public Prosecutions applied for broadcast to be delayed on the grounds of prejudice.
Channel 9 lawyers said outside the Geelong Supreme Court that they would exercise all legal options.
The $13 million series was due to premiere on Channel 9 tomorrow night but has been put off in Victoria indefinitely.
The Nine Network has also been ordered to pull Underbelly character profiles from its website, and has been banned from placing any episodes on the internet in Victoria.
The show is now not expected to be aired in Victoria before May.
"In my view it is more important that the criminal justice system works than this channel make a profit,'' the judge said.
The judge made the decision during a preliminary hearing in Geelong.
The judge said the pool of jurors would come from Victoria and it would be difficult for them to remove the TV series from their minds.
"The court has to do the best it can to give a person a fair trial."
Barrister for Nine, Brendan Murphy QC, today told the court the network would air the murder episode after the trial if the series went ahead as scheduled.
Mr Murphy said the network always intended to air a heavily edited version of the series for Victorian audiences.
Mr Murphy argued "an avalanche of material" about the Melbourne gangland war was already available to the public.
But the judge ultimately issued what she described as a "blanket order".
The judge said Nine's lawyers could not say if the network was aware of pending trials but made a decision to air the series in the ratings period.
The judge said the program tended to corroborate evidence associated with the upcoming trial.
The judge was particularly concerned about the characters and their relationships with each other as already displayed on the Nine website.
The row over Underbelly recalls that surrounding the ABC's 1995 series Blue Murder, which depicted Sydney underworld killings and alleged underworld links with NSW police.
The series was banned for five years in NSW because of its potential to influence a jury in the trial of career criminal Neddy Smith, but was cleared for screening in 2001 after the murder charge against Smith was dropped.
The judge yesterday gave defence lawyers and public prosecutors until today to view more than 10 hours of the Melbourne gangland drama to determine whether the series would affect the upcoming murder trial.
Nine handed over DVDs of the 13 episodes yesterday after being subpoenaed by the Office of Public Prosecutions last week, when doubts were raised over whether an accused Victorian gangland murderer, who cannot be named, would get a fair hearing.
The judge, who also viewed the series yesterday, today said the conversations in the drama would largely be "a figment of the writers' imagination".
"It will be very difficult, in my view. for the public ... to sift what is fact and what is fiction," the judge said.
"The series explains to a very large degree why (name suppressed) was murdered."
"That is really the subject of the trial."
Yesterday, the judge said a coming trial for a man accused of murdering a gangland figure was at risk of being abandoned if the drama series went to air.
The accused man's solicitor applied to the Supreme Court yesterday for the trial to be adjourned for three months on the grounds that the much-hyped program could be prejudicial.
The judge told criminal lawyer Anthony Brand if he elected not to proceed with the trial, he was electing for the show to go ahead.
The judge said the accused could be worse off if the murder trial proceeded after Underbelly had been broadcast.
"What I may be faced with is a permanent stay . . . that the trial could no longer proceed because of this television series," the judge said.
"I do not wish to be the one to stop this program . . . but this is commercial television, it is not the news, it is not about people's right to know, it is about the criminal justice system."
Mr Brand yesterday told the judge he would not give an undertaking not to make a future application for a permanent stay of prosecution.
Prosecutor Geoff Horgan, SC, opposed the application on the grounds Mr Brand would not give the undertaking.
At a court hearing last week, Mr Brand opposed the TV series airing in Victoria, saying his client was ready for the impending trial.
Brendan Murphy, QC, for Nine, said a potential court order could create logistical difficulties for the network.
