Life in prison. Still, name suppressed (what a stupid thing).

freitasm:

Life in prison. Still, name suppressed (what a stupid thing).

I have wondered about that. Of course like everyone else in the country, I know who it is and I did some basic research. It may be possible that the person is responsible for other crimes and maybe the name suppression is to safeguard future legal actions. I don't know this, just speculating.

Apart from that, Grace Rest In Peace. You most certainly did not deserve to be victimised a second time at the trial. I think there ought to be a way to prevent victims of sex crimes having their lifestyles and choices ripped apart in court. Maybe media and interested parties could be allowed to be physically present at trials in the interests of open justice, as is currently the case, but more restrictions could be placed on what the media are allowed to report. 

Young people experiment. Also sexually. Why should this be used against someone who did nothing whatsoever wrong,  except trust the wrong person?

fearandloathing:

freitasm:

 

Life in prison. Still, name suppressed (what a stupid thing).

 

I assume he still has pending charges.

Probably true, but there will no doubt be other people matching what little is known about him facing charges in court, and if the alleged crime bears even a passing resemblance to what happened in this murder, the jurors might be prone to think that they're already looking at a person convicted of a heinous crime. 

IANAL.  Genuine question, can a judge instruct a jury that a person on trial is not him - or would that open up even another can of worms?

freitasm:

 

Life in prison. Still, name suppressed (what a stupid thing).

 

Quite agree.

New Zealand has some of the stupidest name suppression rules. 

More often than not, for every reason behind suppression, one can find a more compelling argument for the opposite. 

Privacy seems to be more important than justice. 

This, and not convicting people because they are a great athlete ... grrrrr.

Rikkitic:

 

[cut] Of course like everyone else in the country, I know who it is and I did some basic research.

 

Nup, I haven't gone hunting for the name and don't have a clue who he is; I wouldn't be surprised that a decent proportion of the population are in the same boat.

jonathan18:

 

Rikkitic:

 

[cut] Of course like everyone else in the country, I know who it is and I did some basic research.

 

 

Nup, I haven't gone hunting for the name and don't have a clue who he is; I wouldn't be surprised that a decent proportion of the population are in the same boat.

 

I must admit that curiosity got the better of me and I looked it up a few months ago.  Not surprisingly, and like 99.99% of people, the name meant nothing to me, so an underwhelming anti-climax.  A week later I'd forgotten the name, can't recall it now and won't be looking for it again, no point.

floydbloke:

 

I must admit that curiosity got the better of me and I looked it up a few months ago.  Not surprisingly, and like 99.99% of people, the name meant nothing to me, so an underwhelming anti-climax.  A week later I'd forgotten the name, can't recall it now and won't be looking for it again, no point.

 

Me too. Looked it up then promptly forgot.

Overall the name suppression seems fine.
Maybe if he lived on my street I'd care about his name. But that's the point, if you are likely to met him, you would want to know.

But I live in Dunedin and our Doctor who was convicted for murder didn't have is name suppressed (not sure why the two case are treated differently - but that's an aside).
Dunedin is not that large really, but I didn't care what his name was because I never had and probably never would interact with him.

New Zealand name suppression interests me because it seems so pointless. The reason I knew this person's name (I don't any longer; I have also forgotten it) is because I did a quick search about the case and every newspaper in Britain popped up screaming the name on the front page. In the age of the Internet, one has to wonder what purpose name suppression serves at all in high profile cases.

afe66: Both cases are horrific but the differing amount of coverage says something about the media and their perception of what the public wants.

It's not perception it's reality, news programming is about ratings when they have to compete in the same timeslot against another commercial network. When they run the pre news ad bites of headlines to draw you in you can be sure they are testing those and how many more or less tune in later depending on the headline case at the time. 

Geektastic: The wider point is the pointlessness off suppression in the Internet age.

It’s a result in the Google search a ten year old could run.

You say that, but Im abroad right now and I cant for the life of me find out who this prominent New Zealander accused of sexual assault and witness tampering is.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12040176

Such cases dont make the foreign press but the Millane case did.

Google tips welcome.