Columns by Mike Crowl, from the Dunedin Star Midweeker, Dunedin, New Zealand

Column Eight - 14th Sept, 1994

Kept Silent

I don't think any subject has caused me more internal debate than name suppression, ie, certain individuals receiving anonymity when they go before a court. In the past I've usually thought it was a good thing. Hearing the evidence about the characters involved, however, has begun to convince me it isn't. Is there any real value in name suppression? How far, in fact, does it extend? Isn't there always going to come a time when the name will come out, slipped off someone's tongue as it was even with one of the children involved in the Peter Ellis case? And there must always be people who know the name, and who have already told friends about events relating to that person. How easy it is for the name to go trickling down the stream and cast up exposed in some place where it was least expected. In one of the Gospels Jesus says there's nothing that won't be revealed; nothing hidden that won't become known - in due course everything will come out. Name suppression, I suspect, follows this rule, even though we don't think it should. Perhaps where the events involve only an individual and his own family, there may be room for suppression - to keep the privacy of the family within the family. But where it affects the community, as it appears to have done in the case of the Dunedin specialist accused of sexually harassing his staff and patients (named Dr Who by North and South), or the social worker who's been accused of being a paedophile, I can't see any benefit in name suppression. All the more so when these two people have both been allowed to go back and work in the community without most of the community being aware of their alleged crimes. The unfortunate thing is that some people seem to be able to get name suppression more easily than others, on the basis, firstly, that it will affect their family, and secondly, that it will affect their reputation. But isn't one family just as important as another? How is it some families have to suffer the ignominy of one of their members being exposed for the horrors he or she is alleged to have done, and others do not? And isn't the person's reputation already affected, whether or not they have done the crime? It's one of the unfortunate facts of life that even when we don't do something wrong, but are accused of it, the aura of ill-doing remains. Trust takes a long time to rebuild. Justice should be open for all to see, not hidden under cover, where suspicions of what might have happened can arise and stir the muddy waters still further. At least with everything out in the open, anyone with anything more to add to the matter is able to contribute. When the matter is hidden, those most affected, particularly the victims, may not even realise a criminal has been brought to trial. The name suppression of a sex offender who later appeared on the television show Blind Date is a horrifying example of how this piece of supposed justice works against itself, as is that of the social worker who allegedly carried on with his paedophilia after getting off scot-free the first time. Name suppression for victims is a different matter. I can't see any value in allowing children's names to be exposed, where possible. And there is enough injustice for adult victims already without adding further to it by announcing to the world that someone, in some way, abused them, without saying who. In general, the name suppression game seems to me more often than not to add to victims' distaste and disgust of the justice system. It allows a guilty party to keep his guilt to himself. Name suppression is an encouragement to the nastier elements of society to keep on doing what they've done. For defendants such as these, I think it's an outmoded way of dealing with the problem.

Peter Ellis: Documented in detail in Lynley Hood's controversial book   One of several notorious cases in recent New Zealand history in which the facts don't seem to add up the way they were presented in court. [Back]

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