QC to investigate naming of sex abuse victims

File photo / NZH

A Queen's Counsel will carry out an investigation into the publication of the names of two sexual abuse victims on a Ministry of Justice website.

Justice Minister Simon Power today announced John Marshall QC would conduct an inquiry on how the names were published on the Ministry's Judicial Decisions Online website.

The former President of the New Zealand Law Society and current Chief Commissioner at the Transport Accident Investigation Commission would recommend changes the Ministry's procedures to prevent a similar incident happening again, said Mr Power.

But the inquiry would not cover possible changes to how judges noted suppression orders, he said.

"The inquiry will not review the processes for how judges note and mark their decisions for distribution - that's a matter for the Chief High Court Judge - but it will look at how the Ministry processes judicial decisions before putting them on to the internet."

Chief High Court Judge Justice Helen Winkelmann last week said the publication of the victims' names was due to a court failure to note suppression rules on a judgement.

Justice Winkelmann said it was an error and the sentencing judge very much regretted it had happened.

However, the ministry had a responsibility to ensure that all details required to be suppressed by statute or by court order were removed from published judgments, she said.

She would review how judgements were noted and marked for distribution.

"Statutory suppression provisions in particular apply to everyone and do not depend on the direction of a judge. Publication of the decision is not at the direction of the judge."

Two brothers were named on the Ministry of Justice website when their abuser's sentencing notes were posted online last Thursday.

The document was removed the following day, when the error was discovered.

The publishing of the names breached the automatic suppression rules surrounding sexual abuse victims.

Mr Power said it appeared the ministry was following instructions from the judiciary when it published the names, and that no suppression orders had been marked on the document.

The ministry had contacted one of the men to apologise, but was still trying to contact the second man.

The abuse happened 20 years ago and involved the offender, aged under 17 and a sexual abuse victim himself, regularly abusing the boys near a rural swimming hole.

He was this month sentenced to four years' jail on eight counts of sexual violation of a boy under 12 and five counts of indecent assault or inducing an indecent act.