Vent: legal system stupidity

RuthnJasper

Ronaldo_Mconaldo wrote: »

They name suspects in all crimes. Why do you only show interest when it comes to rape?

Because the stigma lasts longer. Longer, even, than murder - especially when a teacher is involved.

keyser666

Not stupid at all. The police released his and her name and pictures. It is one of the things you want to do in a kidnapping case is get the identity of the abducted and abductee out rapidly and massively, to ease in their identification - especially in cases where Stockholm Syndrome may be an issue and the abductee can't necessarily be counted upon to aid in their own rescue.

This case and similar the over-riding need was to locate and bring home the child, which would not have happened if she had not been identified and pictured.

The Childrens Act 1989 s.1, requires courts/police to have the welfare of the child as paramount. Locating (suspected or actually) abducted children obviously requires and is helped by their identification to the public. It would be perverse for a court to block that publication during such an investigation.

The CYPA order initially granted by a DJ and varied slightly by the trial judge was correct to be granted to protect the child from any further public intrusion.

Azari

What annoys me is when, reporting any case involving a minor, they say: "cannot be named for legal reasons".

Why don't they just say because of the age of the person in question. That is not illegal and they very occasionally do say that.

On on the subject of absurd identifications, what about the "Susan (not her real name)" nonsense? It might make a certain amount of sense if it were a long article and the person was repeatedly referred to but they do it when the name is only use once.

PLog86

Azari wrote: »

On on the subject of absurd identifications, what about the "Susan (not her real name)" nonsense? It might make a certain amount of sense if it were a long article and the person was repeatedly referred to but they do it when the name is only use once.

That is odd, isn't it? Why not go the whole hog and say something like "6ft (not his real height) German (not his real nationality) Train Driver (not his real occupation)".

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

They did that in some bizarre Radio 4 story the other day - about nothing that interesting anyway:

"her name is Geraldine, but that's not her real name, and her words are spoken by an actress to disguise her identity".

I mean, what's that supposed to do? Why not just go the whole way and tell us that the whole thing came from the imagination of some hack journalist?

The funniest thing I heard a while ago was when they were interviewing a woman about the price of renting a house. She made some points, they asked some questions, quite interesting stuff, it was her own voice. Then the interviewing lady, Montague, I think, cut in to emphasise the point that they weren't going to mention the place that this woman lives in case her landlord is listening or something, she really laboured the point and then she asked about prices in the area. The very next thing the interviewee said was "yes, well in Bristol,where i'm from house prices are etc etc..."

Tropez

PLog86 wrote: »

That is odd, isn't it? Why not go the whole hog and say something like "6ft (not his real height) German (not his real nationality) Train Driver (not his real occupation)".

I quite like this idea. Make sure you get "... train driver (not his real occupation) said that his (not his real gender; or is it?)" in there as well.