PUBLISHING NAMES OF WITNESSES

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23809, 1 December 1942, Page 3

PUBLISHING NAMES OF WITNESSES

COMMENT ON VENEREAL DISEASE CASES

While cases of the kind (transmission of venereal disease) under the Social Hygiene Act should receive full publicity, the very object of the legislation might be defeated by publication of witnesses' names in such proceedings, said Mr F. F. Reid, S.M.. in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday in supporting a suggestion by Senior-Sergeant J. Bickerdike, that witnesses’ names in a case before the Court be not published. The charge was against a woman of 23—that she knowingly committed an act ikely to infect another person with a venereal disease. According to a doctor’s evidence, the defendant had been treated for gonorrhoea between February, 1941, and October, 1942, when she was discharged as cured. The defendant pleaded not guilty to the charge, which related to August. The Magistrate said he was satisfied that on the evidence the defendant should be convicted. "Certain features about this case might tend to set it apart from the more common courses which charges of this sort follow, in that there is no suggestion here that the young woman is of a generally loose character or given to promiscuous association with men," said the Magistrate. "Under those circumstances —those elements lacking—l have decided that she will be required to be remanded for sentence to-morrow. In the meantime, I will make an order prohibiting publication of her name. "In cases of this kind it Is so difficult to get people to come forward and give evidence that I think it is actually contrary to public interest that the names of witnesses should be published. I am strongly of the opinion that the fullest publicity should be given in cases of this order, but if the names of witnesses are published the very object of this legislation would be defeated. However, I would make it clear that I am not imposing any restraints on the report of the proceedings."