cancel2 2022
Canceled
The identities of men accused of rape and other sex crimes should be kept secret unless they are found guilty in court, a leading lawyer said yesterday.
Maura McGowan, a deputy High Court judge and chief of the professional body for barristers, said the law should protect the identity of those charged with sex offences because the crimes ‘carry such a stigma’.
‘Until they have been proven to have done something as awful as this – I think there is a strong argument in cases of this sort, because they carry such stigma with them, to maintain the defendant’s anonymity, until he is convicted,’ she said.
‘But once the defendant is convicted then of course everything should be open to scrutiny and to the public.’
Miss McGowan, who is chairman of the Bar Council, acknowledged that there were arguments in favour of allowing suspects to be named.
‘There is obviously a public interest in open justice,’ she said. ‘People would say that they are entitled to know not simply who has been convicted but who has been accused.’
She added that if Jimmy Savile had been accused of sex crimes when he was alive he should have been named. ‘In a case like that, people would say, if one complainant comes forward against a person it might give other people who don’t know her, but who went through the same experience, the courage to come forward as well.’
The idea of anonymity for rape defendants was a surprise inclusion in the list of promises made by David Cameron and Nick Clegg when the Coalition was formed in 2010.
Maura McGowan, a deputy High Court judge and chief of the professional body for barristers, said the law should protect the identity of those charged with sex offences because the crimes ‘carry such a stigma’.
‘Until they have been proven to have done something as awful as this – I think there is a strong argument in cases of this sort, because they carry such stigma with them, to maintain the defendant’s anonymity, until he is convicted,’ she said.
‘But once the defendant is convicted then of course everything should be open to scrutiny and to the public.’
Miss McGowan, who is chairman of the Bar Council, acknowledged that there were arguments in favour of allowing suspects to be named.
‘There is obviously a public interest in open justice,’ she said. ‘People would say that they are entitled to know not simply who has been convicted but who has been accused.’
She added that if Jimmy Savile had been accused of sex crimes when he was alive he should have been named. ‘In a case like that, people would say, if one complainant comes forward against a person it might give other people who don’t know her, but who went through the same experience, the courage to come forward as well.’
The idea of anonymity for rape defendants was a surprise inclusion in the list of promises made by David Cameron and Nick Clegg when the Coalition was formed in 2010.
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