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Darren Hughes’ accuser: will he be named?
By Steven | June 9, 2011
Now that the police have decided not to press charges against Darren Hughes, the obvious next question is whether his accuser can be named.
For now, the answer is no. There is still an injunction in place. Someone will have to apply to court to have it lifted.
Will the judge be sympathetic? I suspect so. He says in his injunction order, “If… the Police decide not to pursue the charges… that circumstance would certainly warrant reconsideration of the basis for the present order.”
That order was in large part based on the fact that the accuser would get automatic name suppression as a sex crime complainant if charges were laid. If he was named before any such charges were laid, that protection would effectively be lost. Of course, it’s now clear that no charges will be laid.
It also seems that the accuser himself only argued for protection for the pre-charge period:
The essential thrust of his claim is that the present circumstances of his complaint to the Police and, in the period until the Police decide whether to lay charges in relation to his complaint, the fact that he has made such a complaint, the fact that he has made such a complaint is a matter of private information with a reasonable expectation of respect for that privacy. [Bold added]
Finally, the judge found that the important thing for the public to know was the fact of the complaint, not the identity of the complainant. Things may have changed now. There may now be public interest in knowing more about the circumstances, including the identity of the complainant, in order to evaluate whether Hughes can appropriately return to the political stage, and perhaps to enable Hughes to tell his story if he wishes to.
On the other hand, there is still a general interest in protecting the identities of people who allege, in good faith, that they have been sex crime victims. I haven’t seen any suggestion from the police that the complaint was not made in good faith.
On balance, I’d expect the injunction to be discharged if someone makes the application.
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