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Vic ban creates Underbelly black market

Updated February 27, 2008 21:51:00

The statewide television blackout that has created a thriving black market.

Source: 7.30 | Duration: 7min 45sec

Topics: television, vic


KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: The Nine TV network is set to appeal later this week against a court ruling banning the broadcast in Victoria of its controversial crime series Underbelly, which is based on Melbourne's now infamous gangland war.

On the eve of the first show's broadcast a few weeks ago, a Victorian Supreme court judge issued a suppression order, preventing the screening of the series in Victoria, because of an upcoming murder trial.

But the decision has sparked widespread debate in Victoria about whether the ban is having the desired effect of guaranteeing a fair trial, amid reports that thousands of Victorians have gained access to the show via the internet.

To compound the problem, advanced copies of six new episodes have been leaked onto the net, and today one website reported that bootleg DVDs of the entire series are now on sale.

It sets up a serious judicial conundrum, not just in the case of Underbelly, but future situations like it, thanks to the brave new online media world.

Heather Ewart reports.

HEATHER EWART, REPORTER: As the TV ratings season opened this month, channel Nine was hoping for big things, especially in Melbourne where it's much hyped Underbelly series was based.

But an upcoming murder trial related to the gangland war would put an end to that.

As the rest of the country had the option of settling down to watch the first episode, the Supreme court's suppression order meant Nine's audience in Victoria was treated to this:

EDDIE MCQUAIRE, TELEVISION PRESENTER: The Nine network would like to apologise to viewers that we are unable to broadcast in Victoria tonight's scheduled premier of Underbelly - the series based on the Melbourne gangland wars.

PHILIP DUNN, QUEEN'S COUNSEL: It's hard to imagine they didn't see the fuss that was going to come in Victoria when you've got gangland trials still coming and you're going to show a television show, quasi documentary, about gangland killings and the players.

I mean I don't know what they were thinking. They must have lost their sense.

HEATHER EWART: They certainly lost their argument before justice Betty King. After watching tapes of all 13 episodes of the show, she declared it would be very difficult for the public to discern between fact and fiction.

And criminal justice was more important than a channel making a profit.

But in these days of the internet it doesn't quite stop there.

JOHN SILVESTER, CRIME WRITER, MELBOURNE AGE: It is a fact that there are tens of thousands of copies of this circulating around Victoria, it can be bought cheaply at building sites, at car parks.

There are police who have sought copies. There are officers of the Supreme Court who have broken the suppression order in watching this.

PHILIP DUNN: So they've been hotly copied and sent around everywhere. It's a great talking point in the coffee shops amongst barristers and solicitors. And I guess the wider public.

HEATHER EWART: Have you seen it?

PHILIP DUNN: Of course.

JOHN SILVESTER: Really it's been made sexy by being banned. It's naughty to watch it. And people are lapping it up.

RADIO PRESENTER: Steve, hello Steve.

RADIO LISTENER 1: G'day guys I'm...

HEATHER EWART: Callers to talk-back radio appear to bear this out.

RADIO LISTENER 2: Morning Neal, I bought all 13 episodes of 'Underbelly' off a guy.


RADIO LISTENER 2: Eighty bucks.

RADIO PRESENTER: And what was he, he wasn't in a shop was he?

RADIO LISTENER 2: No, no, no, he was in a car park.

RADIO LISTENER 3: I bought the whole series yesterday for two bucks.

RADIO PRESENTER: The whole series?



RADIO LISTENER 3: Yeah, ten bucks.


RADIO LISTENER 3: No. From a building site.

RADIO LISTENER 4: I've got about ten of them for 20 bucks. I had all of them from the internet as well. They're ready to download.

HEATHER EWART: You don't have to look too far on the internet to get information on how to access illegal copies.

JOHN SILVESTER: The fact is we've made an underclass of people who are breaching the Supreme Court's suppression order.

People who would never dream of doing that previously.

So golden rule - if we're going to have laws, have them that can be enforced.

HEATHER EWART: Because the 7:30 Report is a national program and this story is being screened in Victoria, we're subject to the suppression order and therefore can't show any scenes from Underbelly.

Nor can we show any images of Underbelly being downloaded off the net.

But, we can report on the growing debate in legal circles and the wider community about whether this suppression order is having the desired effect.

After years of Victorians seeing the real thing played out in suburban streets and on their TV screens, night after night, murders, shoot outs in front of children and funerals, the court trials are the inevitable sequel.

So did Underbelly risk contaminating potential jurors and getting in the way of criminal justice.

ANDREW KENYON, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE FOR MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LAW, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE: I think maybe one of the concerns here is that the content of the program is so close to what is alleged to have gone on. The characters in the program, as I understand it, have same surnames they do in real life.

So it's about that blurring. And it's unusual for that sort of series to happen as the same time as litigation.

PHILIP DUNN: It's a dramatisation, it's a story, but it prejudices the mind of everybody who sees it.

People are running around saying, oh is that what Jason Moran was really like? Is that what this one was like, and is that what that one was like?

And they've got no idea.

JOHN SILVESTER: The core issue is how the courts, not just the Victorian Supreme court, but courts around Australia deal with the fact that the rules have changed.

That information which is banned from newspapers or television or mainstream media is available out there in blogs, in special sites.

HEATHER EWART: John Silvester is the Melbourne Age's chief crime writer and co-author of the book Underbelly for Gangland War.

He sold the rights for the Channel Nine series and readily admits to a vested interest.

But he says this has nothing to do with his calls for the judiciary to assess the merits of suppression orders.

In the light of the impact of modern technology.

JOHN SILVESTER: For example, there is the name of particular protected witness. If I was to mention that name now, I suspect I would go to jail.

I would probably end up being the toy-boy to a very angry drug dealer, which would be unpleasant for both of us.

However, that name that I can't mention, if you Google it, there are seven and a half thousand references to it. He has his own Wikipedia site.

PHILIP DUNN: If the idea is that you don't contaminate the mind of a juror or potential juror.

Then there should have been a blanket prohibition. Perhaps the judge was a little merciful in not smacking channel Nine's wrist a bit harder.

ANDREW KENYON: I don't think there's any simple solution to it. If one was to have these sorts of orders operation nation-wide, that would often restrict speech far more than was needed for the administration of justice.

(Excerpt from Blue Murder)

MAN: Even a low mongrel like you has to learn a few tricks, Ned.

HEATHER EWART: Times have certainly changed since the ABC ten years ago found itself in a similar predicament as Nine today, when it made the series Blue Murder on New South Wales corruption.

It was banned from New South Wales viewing for six years until court cases were completed.

JOHN SILVESTER: In those days, it was video tape recordings being sent up from around the country so that people in Sydney could have a look at it, while having a fondue party.

It wasn't big mainstream downloading tens of thousands of copies.

ANDREW KENYON: Look, I think the change say from Blue Murder a decade ago is quite significant just because the content is so much more available.

Law's response will be gradual, as always.

HEATHER EWART: One suggestion doing the rounds is for the courts to have more faith in jurors to differentiate between what they see on TV and the net and what they hear in a court room.

JOHN SILVESTER: And if we can't trust jurors to do that, let's all pack up and go home.

Because this is going to happen again and again and again.

ANDREW KENYON: You could imagine the situations where jurors will be asked more than they have been in the past.

Have you come across any of this stuff? Because if you have, maybe you shouldn't be a juror in this case. And that's closer to the American model.

HEATHER EWART: On the eve of the appeal hearings, there aren't too many barristers or legal observers predicting a sudden shift in Channel Nine's fortunes.

Certainly this one isn't.

PHILIP DUNN: What's the chances the appeal? Zero.

HEATHER EWART: As for Channel Nine, it declined our request for an interview. A spokesman said because of the impending appeal, the network had chosen not to comment.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Probably very wise.

Heather Ewart with that report.