Sunday’s Northern Territorian included the following story (HT: Twitter @dunlop_craig):

THE High Court has published, and later removed, a document which bares the name of an alleged Northern Territory paedophile, whose identity is the subject of an NT Supreme Court suppression order. The document, a case chronology, was downloaded repeatedly by the NT News last week, but was switched out with a redacted version late on Saturday night, around the time inquiries were sent to court staff.

The NT News states that the case was IMM v R, a very significant ruling on Australia’s uniform evidence law where the Court issued a complex judgment last week. Like most High Court evidence law cases, the facts involved alleged child sexual abuse and the adult defendant’s name was most likely suppressed to protect the identity of the complainant. That being said, the Court did not suppress the man’s name when the case was initially listed for a special leave hearing and the court list for that day (which is still hosted by the Court but not hyperlinked from the Court’s website) still contains his surname. [EDIT: see the first comment below.]

The ‘chronology’ mentioned in the report is likely to be the one supplied by the appellant and published (now without the defendant’s name) by the Court on its website here. Continue reading →