No, I agree the way forward is very unclear, but it seems to me that the anomalies that arise make a nonsense of some of the rules, and that doesn't seem to me to be a good state of affairs.
A recent example that made no sense to me at all was the restricting of reporting on the youth in the Logan Mwangi murder (since lifted). I understand obviously why maintaining his anonymity was desirable until the guilty verdict was returned, but what I hadn't realised until it came up on the thread was that his name as a defendant would have been visible for all to see on signage at the court itself. So you could know his name, and discuss his name with your friends; you just couldn't report it in the media or read it there. As a state of affairs, this seems to me to be based on an idea of the news as something that gets brought to your village by a herald on a horse.
In this case, I have no clarity about why the victims can't be named. (If anyone can explain it that would be great!) I can see that the proceedings are distressing and invasive for their families, but that would be true for any murder trial. And, as I say, the names are already out there anyway.
Plus there seems to have been no such courtesy extended to the defendant prior to her being charged - for a whopping two years!
I suppose I feel that the rules are more likely to be observed if their good sense is obvious, so imo it would be good to have a royal commission into how to overhaul them to be more logical and consistent.
Again, lots of relevant points here.
As to why the victims can't be named, it will almost certainly be down to human rights issues, I think. There is unquestionably a human rights issue as regarding the surviving children. They have a right to their private lives and releasing their names most certainly is a breach of that right. Indeed, the very fact that the Internet exists would be, I think, even more a compelling reason to keep those names protected as once they are out there are online forever. Breaching someone's rights can be done but it needs to be "reasonable and proportionate" I think the word "necessary" is in there somewhere too.
In the cases of the deceased children, human rights issues do not come into the equation as far as they themselves are concerned, but it does as regards their families. They have a right to their privacy and I think that repeated re-publication of their names could reasonably be held as being a breach of their rights to privacy. Justice needs to seen to be done, however, and in a case as serious as murder it would appear reasonable, at least to my way of thinking, that their names are reported so that it could not ever be claimed that the evil state was inventing victims in order to persecute people for political reasons.
There may also be evidential reasons as to why the names of the subjects of the attempted murder charges have been withheld. I was reading through the dates that the charges relate to last night. We know, as it's been reported, that two of the children she is alleged to have murdered were from a set of triplets. The dates of these two alleged offences were given as 23rd June 2016 and 24th June 2016. One of the attempted murder charges is stated as being 25th June 2016. Now,
one could speculate that that charge might relate to the third child and, if so, it might be felt that releasing that name might be prejudicial to the case in either direction?
I get your points as regards LL's identity but, in fairness, neither the police nor the courts released her identity prior to her being charged, that was the media who found it via local sources. I'm not sure that there is any procedure for putting an order in place to restrict the naming of someone who has not been charged. It has been mooted for several years that defendants or suspects in serious cases should not be identified by the press but that would require a change in the law.
