Media company fined for breaching suppression order

Fairfax Media has pleaded guilty to breaching a suppression order in a report published in the Press in Christchurch and ordered to pay $500 for emotional harm to the sexual assault victim it identified.

The woman was not named in the report, but the Crown prosecuted the newspaper because enough details about her were published to enable people to identify her.

She read out to Christchurch District Court today her victim impact report after the media company admitted the charge in a hearing before Judge Colin Doherty.

She said she felt making her statement in court would empower her again after the damaging report which had caused her shame.

It had been difficult to make the sexual assault complaint and she had trusted the system to ensure she would not be identified in the media.

A lot of people had shame in their lives but not many had the misfortune to have details published, as had happened to her.

"Some people were very sympathetic. Other people were shocked, and some were very condemning and judgmental as to how I got myself into this situation. Some people used it to really slander me," she said.

Her oldest daughter had found out about it and her husband had been devastated about people knowing about it at work.

At one point she felt suicidal and she was still experiencing repercussions from the publication eight months later.

Counsel for Fairfax Media, Robert Stewart, said the newspaper had changed its policy and now ensured that the chief reporter and news editor checked all reports referring to victims of sex offending, to ensure that they were not identified.

Other editors in the group, which publishes 10 daily newspapers, had been written to, suggesting they adopt similar procedures.

He described how newspapers had to cope with "a legislative and judicial minefield" of suppressed information in court reports every day.

"Fairfax and the editor both sincerely regret the distress this has caused to the complainant and both formally apologise to her in open court today," he said.

Judge Doherty noted Fairfax had no other breaches on its record, and it had apologised, and put measures in place to stop any repeat of the incident.

"These are all powerful mitigating circumstances," he said.

He said justice would be done by ordering the company to pay the victim $500 as emotional harm reparation.

"That would be further recognition of the harm done and something to assuage the effects upon her."

The newspaper's court reporter, John Henzell, pleaded not guilty to the same charge and was remanded for a status hearing on August 28.

- NZPA