03/02/2020 Economou v David De Freitas (Rev 1) [2016] EWHC 1853 (QB) (27 July 2016) Death report had been triggered. He concluded, "You are welcome to make further oral submissions on scope prior to the commencement of the hearing on 7 November 2014." 39. It was at this point that Mr de Freitas was advised by Ms Wistrich to "go public" on the issues which he wanted to have ventilated and examined at the inquest. With her help, and that of Ms Crallan, he did so. In the first instance, this was done via The Guardian and the BBC. The November publications 40. The first four publications complained of appeared in The Guardian and on the BBC on and between 6 and 8 November 2014. They can usefully be considered together. 41. First in time was an article by Sandra Laville that went online on The Guardian website on the evening of 6 November ("the First Guardian Article"). I described the genesis of this article in some detail in the judgment I gave at the Pre-Trial Review ("PTR"): see [2016] EWHC 1218 (QB) [25]. For present purposes it is enough to say that on 5 November 2014 Ms Wistrich contacted Ms Laville, outlining the situation as it stood, and asking if she might be interested in "a story re state involvement that may have led to the suicide of a rape victim". Ms Laville showed interest in writing about the matter. On the afternoon of 6 November Mr de Freitas drafted three paragraphs of wording ("the Press Statement") which was then provided on his behalf to Ms Laville with a view to its publication as part of an article. 42. In the meantime, Ms Wistrich had made contact with the BBC. In the early evening of 6 November, the BBC made contact with Ms McMahon of Mr Economou's solicitors, notifying her that they were running a programme on Radio Four the following morning about the prosecution of Ms de Freitas, and asking for comment. She passed the news on to Mr Economou. 43. At 19:20 on 6 November 2014 the article which Ms Laville had prepared went online on the Guardian website www.theguardian.com/uk. The headline was "Call for prosecutors to answer for trial of alleged rape victim who killed herself". There was a sub-headline, "Eleanor de Freitas died days before she had to go on trial accused of lying about rape claim, despite lack of evidence." The First Guardian Article was 19 paragraphs long. It is not necessary to set it all out, but it contained the following words: "[1] A young woman who said she had been raped went on to kill herself after the Crown Prosecution Service put her on trial for making up the allegation in a case originally instigated by her alleged attacker. [2] The woman's father is calling on the CPS to explain why they pursued a charge of perverting the course of justice against Eleanor de Freitas, 23, despite being told by police there was no evidence that she had lied, and in the knowledge that she was suffering from a psychiatric illness. … [5] David de Freitas, her father, said: "Eleanor was a vulnerable young woman, diagnosed with bipolar, who made a complaint of rape as a result of which she herself became the subject of legal proceedings. This was despite the fact the police did not believe there to be a case against her. [6] "There are very serious implications for the reporting of rape cases if victims fear that they may themselves end up the subject of a prosecution if their evidence is in any way inconsistent. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the CPS consider very carefully whether such cases are in the public interest." [7] He added: "I feel that the system of fairness in this country has let me down terribly, and something needs to be done so that this can never happen again." [8] The CPS had pursued De Freitas for allegedly making up the rape allegation after the man at the centre of the claims spent £200,000 on a private prosecution, documents submitted to the inquest say. www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2016/1853.htm 9/58