Hopefully this means it will be a full trial with an outcome unbiased by media
Queensland court awards temporary order prohibiting the naming of high-profile man accused of rape
The media will not keep out of it - there'll be a lot of people salivating at the prospect of this trial and the potential advertising revenue. After all broadcasting everything worked so well last time and definitely didn't ruin the chances of anyone getting closure instead of just leaving things hanging...
‘High profile’ doesn’t always means a celebrity.. keep that in mind
oh I know. given possibilities I'm just saying, it might be better not to publicise the name regardless. some trials are thrown out because of it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A high-profile man accused of rape has been granted a temporary court order preventing him from being named when new Queensland laws come into effect next week.
Under existing law in the state, a person accused of sexual offences cannot be named until they have been committed for trial – but that is set to change on Tuesday.
Under the legislation, accused offenders can apply to the court for an interim non-publication order to maintain their anonymity, but they cannot do so until the new laws come into effect.
The man’s lawyers have said they will apply for a non-publication order “as soon as practical” after the legislation comes into effect, according to a decision published on Friday by the supreme court of Queensland.
“Given the publicity that the committal proceeding has attracted, there is a substantial risk that, unless a temporary order is made, media reports identifying the applicant as the defendant in the committal proceeding will be published as early at Tuesday 3 October 2023,” Justice Peter Applegarth wrote in the decision on Friday.
Last Wednesday, the court was adjourned for six weeks to give prosecutors time to trawl through the alleged victim’s phone data.
The original article contains 404 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 51%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Give us a name!
So I spent five minutes on Google and Reddit. To no surprise, it's pretty widely known who this individual is among the locals of Toowoomba.
Which led me to look up what to do if someone posts the name here. This Guardian piece on the topic is pretty clear:
Who do suppression orders affect?
Technically, everyone. Media outlets and reporters are not allowed to publish suppressed information because they expose it to a wide audience including potential jurors.
But anything written or said in a partially public forum counts as a “publication”. If you run a small self-published blog, write a tweet, or post in a Facebook group, technically you could be punished, too. It’s up to the public prosecutor whether they press charges.
Australian suppression orders apply overseas because they usually include anything that “can be accessed in Australia”. Thanks to the internet, this means any online news published by an overseas outlet, a tweet or post – unless it is geoblocked. Again, whether such breaches could lead to prosecution will largely be a matter of practicality.
Long story short: I'll be deleting any comment naming the accused. I'd appreciate it for people to report any comments with the accused named also. Thanks all.
@SleazyAlbanese Can't do that because of the law, but let's just say, it won't come as a big surprise to anyone following closely
Suicides from false accusations ruining people's lives are not rare and had a huge uptick during the MeToo movement, especially in the US. Anonymity should be the most important thing for any case.
A few years ago in the ACT...
The false accuser only got 3 years. Orchestrating, making a fake crime scene, dragging a person through jail and court, trying to destroy them completely, and almost got as far as causing suicide. Just 3 years. Like, someone can murder someone, but it takes a special sick and dangerous mind to cause someone to kill themself instead or have their life taken from them through prison and record. And only 3 years.
No one can weigh up which is worse, but rape and false accusations of rape are clearly life destroying actions on an innocent person. Only the sickest of minds would do either.
The rate of false accusations of rape is really hard to determine but is generally regarded as being pretty low (Vicpol puts it at ~5% based on studies). It's also extremely hard to get a good number though, since false does not mean unfounded.
I don't think it's justified drawing an equivalence between rape and rape accusations given the evidence we have on the rates, it makes it seem like false accusations are happening way more than they actually are.
Also given who this probably is, this is likely not the only accusation of rape also, which decreases the likelihood the accusations are false I would suggest.
The other factor is that only a small fraction of these incidents are even reported to begin with.. 87 per cent of victim-survivors of sexual violence didn't report that experience to the police
So, are you saying that all trials for any and all crimes or suits should never name either party?
I think they are saying names shouldn't be released until after a verdict had been rendered. Just the implication is enough to ruin someone's life even before a guilty verdict had been rendered.