Page 189 - Law and the Media

Law and the Media
publication, as part of a crime report, of the victim’s job, place of work or name of any family
member would be prohibited if it would lead to the victim’s identification. The reason for the
less stringent restrictions prior to the defendant being accused is to allow the publication of
information that might bring forward witnesses or otherwise help the police investigation.

The Sexual Offences Acts do not define ‘an allegation’, but it is reasonable to assume the
court will interpret this to mean a complaint to the police. The complainant does not,
however, have to be the victim.

There is no prohibition on reporting the court proceedings provided that the anonymity of the
victim is protected. Nor is there any prohibition on identifying the defendant, provided the
victim is not thereby identified. However, the media should exercise extreme caution when
publishing pictures of the defendant if the identification of the defendant as the perpetrator
of the offence is an issue at trial.

9.7.3 Lifting the prohibition

The prohibition about identifying victims of sexual offences does not apply if the victim,
who must be over 16 years of age, consents in writing, freely and without any undue
influence, to being identified. Further, judges (or magistrates if the matter is before them)
have the discretion to lift the anonymity rule if:

The trial judge is satisfied that the prohibition would ‘impose a substantial and
unreasonable restriction’ upon the reporting of the trial and it would be in the
public interest to remove or relax the restriction, or
The defendant applies to the court to lift the restriction to encourage witnesses to
come forward and there is a likelihood the defence or any appeal will be
‘substantially prejudiced’ if the reporting restrictions are not lifted.

Judges are likely to be sympathetic to the plight of the press where the matter being tried
goes beyond a sexual offence. For example, in the case of R v Hutchinson (1984) the
defendant was charged with the murder of three members of a wealthy Sheffield family and
the rape of another family member who survived. The victim of the rape, whose name was
the same as her deceased relatives, was also the chief prosecution witness on the murder
charges. It was suggested to the judge by some members of the press that proper reporting
of the murder trial could not take place if the name of the murdered family was not made
public because of the rape charge. The judge ruled that it was in the public interest for the
restriction to be lifted in respect of the rape victim.

9.7.4 Defences
It is a defence to a charge of breaching the anonymity rule to prove that at the time of
publication the accused was not aware nor suspected that the report contravened the Sexual
Offences Acts.
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