SUPPRESSION OF NAMES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20114, 27 November 1928, Page 11

SUPPRESSION OF NAMES.

MAGISTRATE STATES VIEWS. AN APPLICATION REFUSED." [HY TELEGRAPH. —OWN' CORRESPONDENT. ] HAMILTON, Monday. Ail application for the suppression of an accused person's name was refused by Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in tho Hamilton Magistrate's Court to day. Tho accused was William Robert Crompton, an insurance agent, who pleaded not guilty to a charge of being in a state of intoxication while in charge of a motor cycle at Frankton on Saturday. Mr. J. F. Strang, who appeared for accused, asked for a remand until Wednesday to enable witnesses to be called. The icmatid was granted, and bail was allowed. Counsel asked th.it accused's name be suppressed until the circumstances were disclosed. Tho magistrate said lie was not at all in sympathy with the request. It always seemed to him to bo quite unsound for a man to bo publicly charged with an offenco in Court and then to have his name suppressed in tho press. Only in exceptional circumstances did ho grant such requests.

Mr. Strang said the Bench might decide, on tho hearing of tho case, that it was one in which the name should b« suppressed. Air. Wilson replied that although n man was regarded as innocent until he was proved guilty, ho would not be arrested without reason. There was a difference between a man being charged with an offence and being convicted.. If the. charge was dismissed, there was nothing in his namo being mentioned.