Would people want to protect the
rapist and not the victim!
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.
