You wouldn’t read about it: Adrian Bayley rape trials expose flaw in suppression orders
With journalists being blamed for breaching suppression orders on some high profile trials Mark Pearson of Griffith University asks if the way the laws currently work are really suitable for the internet age.
It is somewhat alarming when a media law academic finds himself on the wrong side of a media law. But that is exactly what happened to me when I discovered the new edition of our textbook was in breach of a suppression order on the name of Adrian Bayley – the man who murdered Jill Meagher.
Our experience highlights serious problems with the system of suppression orders in the courts today as they try to grapple with the ever-increasing challenge of keeping internet-savvy jurors from having access to reports of the past trials or convictions of the accused.
Victorian County Court judge Sue Pullen issued the suppression order against anyone publishing “any information relating to previous convictions, sentences, or previous criminal cases of the accused”. The orders were lifted on Thursday after Bayley was convicted of raping three other women before he raped and murdered Meagher in September 2012.
“News of the order had not spread beyond the inner circle of lawyers and mainstream court reporters and editors, mainly in Victoria.”
That’s just not true. I work for a major Australian news outlet and our legal team have made sure that anyone who comes anywhere near editorial content is aware of the existence of this order. We’re looking at an editorial staff in the hundreds here.
We are based in New South Wales.