The trial of Coronation Street stars Michael le Vell and Bill Roche for sex offences
has highlighted the difference between UK anonymity laws and those in Ireland, which prohibit the identification of rape accused before conviction.Irish law states that those accused of rape can only be identified publicly
- if convicted and then only if,
- the victim waives her right to anonymity and
- the trial Judge consents
An analysis of data from 2011 to present shows that 59 per cent of those convicted of sex crimes in the Central Criminal Court are not named in the media after conviction.
Fiona Doyle, who was raped by her father for 10 years and went public after his conviction, feels that the decision shouldn’t be made by the Judge as it is a very personal decision.
Sex crimes, other than rape, defilement and incest, do not carry automatic pre-conviction anonymity. This leaves us with the strange situation where a man accused of violently sexually assaulting a woman can be named while a man accused of raping her retains his anonymity. There is no doubting rape is one of the most damaging crimes on the statute book, however, in terms of violence and depravity it is often matched by the supposedly lesser offence of sexual assault.
In numbers: Sex crime convictions at Central Criminal Court from2011 to February7, 2014
150
Number of cases in total
59%
of those convicted (88) were not named
41%
of those convicted (62) were named
3%
of victims (5) consented to themselves being named
34%
of rapists (52) were related to the victim
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