Judge Redhead bans all media from coverage of sex offence trial
This was revealed in the High Court on Monday November 26 2012 by Senior Crown Counsel Valston Graham.
Prior to the commencement of a trial on an alleged sexual related offence, Graham made an application before Justice Albert Redhead requesting that the matter be held in camera.
He said given the “smallness” of the Virgin Islands society, the accessibility of persons to the media and to electronic communication, “we believe that in fairness to complainants and victims of sexual offenses, that to have their personal details be detailed in the public domain really ought to be balanced and to be respected.”
Graham said he was making the request against his appreciation for publicity and for the role of the media in the criminal justice system but having regards to the personal details of the victims being aired in public and in many regards to the defendants as well.
“We believe that the public interest ought to prevail especially in crimes of sexual nature and it is for that that I believe the legislators in their wisdom deployed [Section 46] subsection 6 in the Evidence Act. I for one, for the future going forward, will ask for this section to be employed in matters of sexual offences and my application is for the [current] matter to be heard in camera and therefore the media be excluded for the duration of the trial.”
Judge Redhead then granted the application which then excluded the media and all persons not associated with the trial from the court room.
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39 Responses to “Judge Redhead bans all media from coverage of sex offence trial”
Thank God. Sexual assault, rape, molestation etc are all crimes that a victim is more often than not, ashamed of and terrified of details being known. It is too often people judge the victim as "getting what was coming". NO one should ever have their own person violated for any reason. It has been disgusting to read people blog nastiness against women and children laying out their personal story of a horrible crime comitted against them. I am even happier to hear that this will not happen again in any media outlet.
As such it is an essential cog in the system of checks and balances that form part of our democracy.
One cannot place restrictions on the media if they are to do their jobs properly in a free democratic society as we understand we are and as part and parcel of the Western world.
In recent times many wrong doings have been uncovered and exposed thru the work of the media and these online news. The world media has risk limb and life in many cases -especially on the battlefront of conflicts as in the Middle East. In the supposed bastion of democracy, the USA, a president had to demit office because of what is known as the Watergate scandal as a result of the investigative work of two journalists.
Today it’s the media tomorrow it will be the people!
what's so wrong with this? we have jurors and others that can be swayed by news reporting and the fact that people's names are being smeared. let the media report after the case is over. why do we need to know details of sexual crimes? its not our business, all we should be concerned about is that if a person committed a crime they are punished accordingly.
I thank the good judge that prudence is being exercised at last, and hopefully this will be the way forward.