Cash for peerages - any chance of a fair trial?

One thing we can be sure of is that Lord Levy has access to some very fancy briefs - barristers that is. We had last week's story in the Guardian and the BBC's story yesterday which states that 'Ruth Turner wrote of her concerns that "Lord Levy had asked her to lie for him". '

I would have thought any decent barrister would be able to argue that, given these suggestions in the media, any chance of a fair trial has been prejudiced. That is, if the matter ever gets to court.

Having said that, the BBC took a week to come forward with their story (they even resisted the temptation to quote the Guardian story last week), so, presumably, the latest "lie" story was submitted to scrutiny by copious bands of our learned friends, prior to airing.

But, there is a difference between avoiding a charge of contempt of court (which the BBC were presumably trying to do) and prejudicing a trial, I presume. You can avoid one, while doing the other, perhaps.

It is here that I fall off the edge of the cliff of my own ignorance of the law and leave others to make more informed comment.