Speaker 1: Chioda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government
Speaker 2: plans to change laws to allow victims the right to
Speaker 2: choose whether a convicted sex offender gets permanent name suppression
Speaker 2: or not. Currently, automatic name suppression applies to protect witnesses
Speaker 2: and complainants under the age of eighteen and those where
Speaker 2: certain sexual offenses are alleged. It's a law that garners
Speaker 2: a lot of criticism online and from the general public.
Speaker 2: There's constantly commentary on the perceived reasons why someone gets
Speaker 2: to keep their name a secret. Carold Senior reporter Melissa
Speaker 2: Nightingale and Newstalks DB's Sophie Trigger have been delving into
Speaker 2: the feedback given to the Minister about these changes. Today
Speaker 2: on the Front Page, Melissa is with us to discuss
Speaker 2: them and what the law looks like at the moment. Melissa,
Speaker 2: let's start with name suppression laws in general. There are
Speaker 2: some cases where it's applied automatically and others where it's not.
Speaker 2: Can you explain them to me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's multiple ways that people will get automatic
Speaker 3: name suppression. Obviously, in terms of victims or complainants. If
Speaker 3: they're children under eighteen, or if they're victims of sexual offending,
Speaker 3: they will have automatic name suppression. But when we're talking
Speaker 3: specifically about defendants, there are some cases where they have
Speaker 3: automatic suppressions, such as if they've been charged specifically with
Speaker 3: incest or sexual offending against a dependent family member, that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. Also, if the defendant themselves is a youth,
Speaker 3: they will have automatic suppression and that generally can't be
Speaker 3: lifted except in certain circumstances. For example, a case that
Speaker 3: we had I think last year in Wellington where a
Speaker 3: youth was charged with attempted murder, but because of the
Speaker 3: seriousness of the charge, he was moved up the jurisdiction
Speaker 3: into the High Court And once they move out of
Speaker 3: the Youth Court jurisdiction, even if they're still used, they're
Speaker 3: no longer entitled to that automatic name suppression.
Speaker 2: So Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith he's announced plans, well, he
Speaker 2: announced plans late last year to make a couple of
Speaker 2: changes to name suppression laws.
Speaker 3: What were they, But he's planning to bring in this law. Basically,
Speaker 3: the courts cannot grant permanent name suppression to defendants who
Speaker 3: have been convicted of sexual offending unless the victim consents
Speaker 3: to them receiving that name suppression. This doesn't include some
Speaker 3: of those automatic cases such as incest cases those kind
Speaker 3: of things, but it would cover most sexual offending matters.
Speaker 2: What advice and feedback has he gotten about these changes?
Speaker 3: So an Official Information Act request that enzid ME has
Speaker 3: received has shown that there's been quite a lot of
Speaker 3: feedback to Minister Goldsmith and the Government about this proposal.
Speaker 3: There's a few legal groups that have said that they
Speaker 3: think this is a really bad idea, essentially that there's
Speaker 3: a lot of risks that come with it. In the
Speaker 3: Ministry of Justice itself also gave a briefing to the
Speaker 3: Minister saying we do not recommend you proceed with this
Speaker 3: proposal as it doesn't contribute to helping victims. However, it
Speaker 3: appears that Cabinet has set aside those concerns and continued
Speaker 3: on with very minimal changes to the proposal.
Speaker 4: The primary issue is that you have people who are
Speaker 4: convicted of sexual crimes, rape and being convicted and they
Speaker 4: can still get permanent name suppression, and that's a massive issue,
Speaker 4: particularly for the victims. They can't really talk about what
Speaker 4: happened to them, they can't warn others, and so we decided, look,
Speaker 4: you only get permanent name suppression if you're a convicted
Speaker 4: sex offender, if the victim agreed, and if the victor
Speaker 4: and doesn't agreeable.
Speaker 2: Tough luck.
Speaker 4: You're not going to get it, and you should own
Speaker 4: up for your crimes.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of the concerns raised in the feedback
Speaker 2: and briefings to Goldsmith. I'll just read out a carple
Speaker 2: victims could be exposed to influence and negative repercussions from
Speaker 2: family members, particularly if they're under eighteen. Also, the proposal
Speaker 2: requires agreement from a lay person who does not have
Speaker 2: access to all the relevant information, including council submissions and
Speaker 2: psychological reports. I mean, the list goes on, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: It's quite a hefty list. And you know, I've been
Speaker 3: caught reporting for more than a decade, so I've sat
Speaker 3: through my fair share of name suppression arguments or participated
Speaker 3: in my fair share of name suppression arguments. And there
Speaker 3: are many, many factors that go into decisions like these,
Speaker 3: and so even I was surprised at just the list
Speaker 3: of things that these legal groups have raised as potential problems.
Speaker 3: Some that hadn't occurred to me, including things like this
Speaker 3: actually could lead to less convictions potentially for sex offenders.
Speaker 3: For example, if the court finds that this defendant there's
Speaker 3: a risk to their life in some way if they
Speaker 3: are named, however, the victim says, too bad, I want
Speaker 3: them to be named. That means that they're actually potentially
Speaker 3: more likely to succeed in a discharge without conviction application,
Speaker 3: because those applications rely on with the consequences of a
Speaker 3: conviction out of all proportion to the offending. So if
Speaker 3: the court was to find, well, actually, this defendant essentially
Speaker 3: could die if they are named, and if they are convicted,
Speaker 3: then they might decide not to convict them. You know,
Speaker 3: we don't know if that's what's going to happen, but
Speaker 3: that's what some of these legal groups have raised as
Speaker 3: a possible concern.
Speaker 2: And I know Ruth Money, she's been a victim advocate
Speaker 2: for quite some time. She was appointed Chief Victim's Advisor.
Speaker 2: What has she said.
Speaker 3: She feels that the concerns that have been raised by
Speaker 3: these legal groups are offensive. She said that they're disempowering
Speaker 3: to victims. They're disrespectful, she said, just because someone has
Speaker 3: been sexually violated in some way doesn't mean that they
Speaker 3: don't get to have autonomy, they don't get to have agency,
Speaker 3: that they don't get to have a voice. So she
Speaker 3: believes that victims are in the right place to be
Speaker 3: making these kinds of decisions and they can be supported
Speaker 3: to do it the right way. When she was speaking
Speaker 3: to me, she said, you know, she's dealt with victims
Speaker 3: who have chosen to support the defendant getting named suppression
Speaker 3: in order to protect third parties such as small children
Speaker 3: that are innocent in all of this, who might be
Speaker 3: affected by, say a parent, getting named publicly. So she said,
Speaker 3: victims do make decisions that are in other people's interests
Speaker 3: as well, and she doesn't want people to discount that
Speaker 3: and just assume that they don't have the ability to
Speaker 3: make these calls.
Speaker 2: Now, you and I have both been court reporters and
Speaker 2: crime reporters for quite some time, and we often see
Speaker 2: outrage from the public when name suppression is given to
Speaker 2: certain alleged defenders. Right, the first one that comes to
Speaker 2: my mind is Jesse Kempsen, who murdered Grace Mulane. He
Speaker 2: kept his name a secret for more than two years,
Speaker 2: but it was kept a secret to make sure he
Speaker 2: had the right to a fair trial for other charges
Speaker 2: relating to two other women. And it's not just about
Speaker 2: his right to a fair trial, it's about making sure
Speaker 2: the trial isn't prejudiced. And because of this, he could
Speaker 2: have kept appealing and drawing out the court process. That's
Speaker 2: unfair to his other victims. Now, this is just one
Speaker 2: example of why a person might have name suppression. What
Speaker 2: are some others.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a whole host of reasons people will get
Speaker 3: name suppression, and there's only a couple of them that
Speaker 3: actually really relate to the defendant themselves. The main one
Speaker 3: that is usually brought up is that they will suffer
Speaker 3: for extreme hardship if they are named. And extreme hardship
Speaker 3: can sort of come in many forms, but the one
Speaker 3: that I see quite often is that they say their
Speaker 3: mental health is so poor that they will be at
Speaker 3: risk of suicide or other types of harm if their
Speaker 3: name is to be published, and that that translates to
Speaker 3: extreme hardship. And while you might think if someone says
Speaker 3: I might kill myself if my name is published, you
Speaker 3: might think that sounds like a very strong ground, it's
Speaker 3: actually quite difficult to get a judge to agree to that,
Speaker 3: and there has to be expert advice and usually for
Speaker 3: multiple experts to say that there is a real high
Speaker 3: risk of this person taking their own life, so it
Speaker 3: is a difficult ground to establish. Other ones include if
Speaker 3: there's a threat to their life potentially their safety from
Speaker 3: outside parties. Maybe they have said someone's made a threat
Speaker 3: against me in prison. There are other factors that relate
Speaker 3: to third parties, such as for example, a defendant might
Speaker 3: have small children who are going to be bullied in
Speaker 3: school when it is revealed that their parent is a
Speaker 3: sex offender or something like that, and these are all
Speaker 3: battled out in court to try and decide, well, does
Speaker 3: this child's potential for being bullied outweigh this victim's right
Speaker 3: to be able to put their story out there, And
Speaker 3: it can be a very difficult argument and it can
Speaker 3: also be difficult to accept the outcomes, and we don't
Speaker 3: always agree with them, but that is a burden that
Speaker 3: currently rests on the judges shoulders rather than the victims.
Speaker 1: Google kind of considers their hands off because it's all
Speaker 1: just their software that gathers up news and harvests again
Speaker 1: without any care about where that's been published into They
Speaker 1: have to care about it. They have to care about
Speaker 1: whether or not they are breaching suppression orders. They are
Speaker 1: a publisher and they've got to be held to account.
Speaker 2: Did you Google. Did you say to say to them, look,
Speaker 2: if you're going to if you're going to ignore this,
Speaker 2: we will have to do something.
Speaker 1: Did you tell them, Yes, I said that it is
Speaker 1: not acceptable that this would happen. They seemed to understand that,
Speaker 1: They seem to accept it. Said they would go away
Speaker 1: and have a look at their systems and make sure
Speaker 1: that they could operate them in a way that didn't happen. Again.
Speaker 1: Now they're telling us they're not going to do anything.
Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, we all have
Speaker 2: a right to a fair trial, don't we. Do you
Speaker 2: think people just forget about that old saying innocent until
Speaker 2: proven guilty?
Speaker 3: Yep? I think that the moment you see someone's name
Speaker 3: connected to a crime, there's something in your head that says, well,
Speaker 3: they must have done it. Anybody that's got their name
Speaker 3: published in relation to offending is probably tired with that
Speaker 3: brush from the get go. Unfortunately, it just seems to
Speaker 3: be how we operate as people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and do you think court processes have become increasingly
Speaker 2: more difficult, but especially with the arrival of the Internet
Speaker 2: and social media, because there are gray spots everywhere when
Speaker 2: it comes to name suppression, and say Google, given different jurisdictions,
Speaker 2: adhere to different rules, Hey, it.
Speaker 3: Can be a real mess. And I think we saw
Speaker 3: that with Jesse Kempsen's case as well, that his name
Speaker 3: was already out there on Google and there was difficulty
Speaker 3: getting it down despite the name suppression, I believe. And
Speaker 3: we've had plenty of other high profile crime cases in
Speaker 3: New Zealand where that's been the case. And then, like
Speaker 3: you say, social media is a whole other thing. People
Speaker 3: will post names, people will share names. Often as a reporter,
Speaker 3: it can feel a bit rough when someone is granted
Speaker 3: at least interim name suppression despite knowing that their identity
Speaker 3: is the city's worst kept secret and that it's already
Speaker 3: been shared everywhere. But that's what the courts decide and
Speaker 3: that's what we've got to follow along with.
Speaker 2: And the Criminal Procedure Act expressly says the fact that
Speaker 2: a defendant is well known does not of itself mean
Speaker 2: that publication of his or her name will result in
Speaker 2: extreme hardship for the purposes of subsection. Now, I feel
Speaker 2: like this is a pretty important one to point out, hey,
Speaker 2: because given the amounts of comments we see just online.
Speaker 3: It is and it seems to be one of those
Speaker 3: cases where it really depends on who is making the
Speaker 3: decision on that matter. And sometimes it's about, well, not
Speaker 3: only am I well known, but my whole career hinges
Speaker 3: on this, and I am saying I'm innocent, and so
Speaker 3: it would be extreme hardship for my career to be
Speaker 3: torpedoed over a false claim against me or something like that.
Speaker 3: But sometimes judges say, regardless, this is just a natural
Speaker 3: consequence of being charged with something like this. Other times
Speaker 3: they are willing to give them that opportunity to be
Speaker 3: found not guilty, potentially before that decision is made.
Speaker 2: So if we go back to Goldsmith's changes, what's next?
Speaker 2: When can we see these changes to the law go
Speaker 2: through the system.
Speaker 3: It's going to go to a select committee, and he
Speaker 3: has Goldsmith has said that this is where these kind
Speaker 3: of issues get thrashed around, and they will, you know,
Speaker 3: supposedly hammer out the issues and the fine details at
Speaker 3: select committee before it proceeds to the next step.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Melissa ys all right, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzidherld dot co dot mz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
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Speaker 2: tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.