ONE BRICK COURT | 1BC

Ian specialises in all aspects of media and information law. He regularly provides pre-publication advice to national newspapers (including The Guardian and The Times) as well as to several magazines and publishing houses.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Listed as up and coming in Chambers & Partners 2008 and 2009 and a leading junior in 2010 (defamation/privacy)

Listed as a leading junior in The Legal 500 2009/10

Ian Helme is "a bright, promising junior with good attention to detail," Chambers and Partners 2010

highly recommended for “getting stuck in and giving a case his all” Legal 500 2009/10

‘Up there with the best and brightest’… …Ian Helme is seen as “a star of the future”’
Chambers and Partners 2008

‘Other fine juniors at the set include Ian Helme “an incredibly bright and promising junior with a good grasp of detail and a commercial approach.” Helme is viewed as “a success story because he is personable, sociable and common-sensical.”’
Chambers and Partners 2009

ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

B.A. (Hons) (First Class) Law, Pembroke College, Cambridge
awarded Ziegler Law Prize (2003)

“Very Competent” BVC (Bar Vocational Course) Inns of Court School of Law

Member of Middle Temple, called to the Bar July 2005

Pupillage 2005-2006: One Brick Court

Tenant at One Brick Court from 2006

REPRESENTATIVE CASES OF INTEREST

• Rath v Guardian Newspapers [2008] EWHC 398 (QB) Junior Counsel (led by Andrew Caldecott QC) for the successful Defendant resisting the Claimant’s application for summary judgment on the issue of fair comment.
• R v VAC (ex parte BBFC) [2008] EWHC 203 (Admin) Junior Counsel (led by Andrew Caldecott QC) for the successful Claimant in Judicial Review proceedings brought by the British Board of Film Classification challenging the Video Appeal Committee’s decision to classify the videowork Manhunt 2 on the basis of an error of law (establishing the correct test for ‘harm’ under the Video Recordings Act 1984).
• Oldham Online Ltd & anor v Rochdale Online Ltd, unreported, 28 July 2008 sole Counsel for the successful Claimants in a three-day High Court trial involving claims for slander and libel and counterclaims for breach of contract and breach of the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997. The corporate Claimant was awarded £15,000 in damages for publication of a defamatory letter to a single individual.
• Taranissi & anor v BBC, various Second Junior Counsel (with Richard Rampton QC and Jane Phillips) for the Claimants in ongoing litigation in respect of the Panorama programme ‘IVF Undercover’. The Claimants were recently awarded their costs in relation to the Defendant’s abandoned defence of qualified privilege.
• Galloway v Jewish Communications Ltd, unreported Counsel for the successful Claimant MP in a libel claim brought against the broadcaster of an internet radio show which had included a highly defamatory caricature of the Claimant. The Defendant subsequently admitted the claim and the Claimant was eventually awarded £15,000 in damages.
• Law Society v Department of Constitutional Affairs (2006) Junior counsel (led by Andrew Caldecott QC) for various media organisations, intervening as interested parties in a judicial review dispute over the retrospective operation of a new CPR rule (the amended CPR 5.4) giving increased access to court documents.
• Financial Times and Ors v United Kingdom (2006) Instructed whilst a Pupil by Times Newspapers Limited to assist with the media defendants’ appeal (from the Court of Appeal judgment in Interbrew v Financial Times and ors [2002] EWCA Civ 274) to the European Court of Human Rights.

PUBLICATIONS AND SEMINARS

Author (with Timothy Atkinson & David Glen) of Atkin’s Court Forms on Defamation 2007 issue.

OTHER INFORMATION

Judicial Assistant to Lord Justice Waller, Vice President of the Court of Appeal, Jan-Jun 2007.

INTERESTS

Member of Human Rights Lawyers Association

Literature, Music, Sport, Chess