SENATOR DAVID NORRIS,
Madam, - I refer to an article by your legal affairs correspondent Carol Coulter. (January 24th) This concerned the question of the naming of sex offenders in the media and the unfairness that results from the unequal application that rules in this case by the courts. The point is cogently made by that "Publicity is in itself a punishment".
However she significantly neglects another very telling aspect of this situation. This is that newspapers throughout Ireland, and, I am sorry to say, including The Irish Times, have over the years made a practice of printing the names, addresses, professions and photographs, and sometimes even indeed photographs of accused persons, in such cases. Now if publicity is a form of punishment for the guilty and this is seen as unfair, how much more unfair it is for those who are legally presumed to be innocent to be so treated, (as all must be before conviction) and how scandalous it is for newspapers to inflict this kind of punishment on those who are subsequently found to be innocent and their families.
In the light of the high-toned moral attitude taken by your newspaper I look forward to a statement from the recently installed Editor that she will see to it that accused persons no longer have this kind of unmerited punishment meted out to both themselves and their families. - Yours, etc.,
SENATOR DAVID NORRIS, Seanad Eireann