To be raging Grace Millane’s Murderer’s name is suppressed

[MabelMoo23]

I know his name - it’s not hard to find - but it’s been legally suppressed until at least 2021

Grace has had her private life dragged through the mud, her parents had to hear accounts of her sex life - which let’s face it came from his account and his defence team.

And he gets his identity protected and the reason for it????

I’m not going to name him as I don’t want this post deleted, but apparently there are times in NZ law that identity can be protected because revealing it can affect other outcomes

Beautiful Grace, rest in peace

His name and picture has been released on Daily Mail.

Why is the DM getting the flak here, this Telegraph article was published in January

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/16/grace-millane-suspect-pleads-not-guilty-ahead-november-trial/

What is the reason behind this, I haven't been able to find out

@ChicCroissant

I want an apology

@10cultkid

ChicCroissant
I want an apology

That is not the way it works.

@cultkid

There were articles from The Independent in Dec 18 revealing his name.

I am genuinely horrified that Grace’s alleged sex life and choices were used as a defence for what her murderer did to her. That should never, ever be allowed but it unfortunately happens all the time to female victims of violent crime, whether they are dead or alive.

I hope that her murderer is brought trial for any other crimes he is accused of (I assume that is why he hasn’t formally been identified in the press in NZ) and if found guilty he is left to rot in jail for the rest of his life. He’s a monster and a danger to all women.

Just read his name in a metro article-hope he rots

Rest in peace, beautiful Grace.
Dark troubled people are drawn to bright spirits like Grace seems to have been, so incredibly sad.
How dignified Grace's parents have been in their darkest hour, I'm full of admiration for them.

I had also assumed this had been to prevent prejudicing other legal cases.

I feel so sad for her parents who had not only to lose their beloved daughter but have some scumbag besmirch their daughter in order to reduce his sentence.

His photograph and name are all over UK press.

I felt so sorry for her family having to listen to sordid details of her sex life

She didn’t have a ‘sordid sex life’. She was a young woman enjoying exploring her own sexuality which she is entitled to do.

What purpose other than to satisfy the mob will it serve to release his name?

I suggest you google the reasons for a transparent and open justice system and have a good read.

I judge people who describe a murder victim as being ‘sordid’ far more than I judge a young woman enjoying what she expected to be pleasant, mutually consensus encounter. She did NOTHING wrong. Are we all supposed to have a steel chastity belt on until we have a ring on our finger?

There is another violent sexual case against him coming up, hence the reason his name is withheld in New Zealand.

Well the UK press is freely reporting it but the good old BBC is still not revealing his identity.

I suggest you google the reasons for a transparent and open justice system and have a good read.

Open and transparent at the cost of another case? What about the next persons justice?

Saying “We’re not releasing his name until 2021. Please do not report it” is being transparent. It’s blatantly saying “His name will be released, but let us do our job fully first”

One of these days irresponsible media reporting is going to see a murderer or rapist walk free

@Emeraldshamrock yes it is
If you are rude and call someone an idiot you apologise

in recent cases the men in question have been found guilty of murder.

Fiona from We Can't Consent to This here - worth saying this campaign started on mumsnet feminist chat.

The bad news is the in the last 5 years, 20 UK women have been killed by men who claimed they consented to the violence. In just under half of those that have finished trial, the claim was successful in getting a lighter charge (like manslaughter), a lesser sentence, or the death not being treated as a crime at all. Only 10 of the 19 men now convicted have been convicted of murder.

More here (although we haven't updated this for the verdict this morning).
wecantconsenttothis.uk/news/do-these-defences-work

And in every case the woman's sexual history is put on trial. And they are forever remembered as the KINKY SEX MUM, or for their dating browsing history.

One woman, Anna Florence Reed's, homicide trial is yet to take place. We are concerned that this trial and the media reporting of it will repeat all of the failings in previous cases.

Please help us nudge election candidates to change law (and we hope outcomes) at least in England and Wales.

wecantconsenttothis.uk/actnow

And then NI, scotland, Germany, Canada, Australia, Spain, Colombia, Portugal, sweden.....

About the "rough sex defence" and comments above that NZ does not allow it:

This is misleading. NZ law on murder is mostly the same as England. The doctrine of subjective recklessness was inherited from English law with colonialism. English law may have ditched that concept - I don't know.

Either way, we don't know if that's what the jury relied upon. They may have decided poor Grace Millane's killer simply intended it.

Grace Millane's murderer ran the argument that her death was all just a complete accident, ie, a "rough sex" defence. He was allowed to do this under NZ law, just has he would in England. Had the jury accepted this, he would have been acquitted of murder - perhaps he might have been convicted of manslaughter instead. In fact, the jury decided to reject it, but that doesn't mean a similar case mightn't have a different result.

The key point is that he was allowed to run the argument. I think most legal commentators would say that was entirely appropriate, if distasteful - because if a defendant claimed a person's death during sex was a complete accident, and if that was the truth, that defendant would in fact not be guilty of murder.

About name suppression: it has been part of NZ law for a century. It's based on the traditional English common law premise that a person is presumed innocent until found guilty. Therefore a person is entitled not to to have their name dragged through the mud until their guilt is proved. Name suppression can continue for a variety of reasons, typically to allow time for appeal rights. I would fully expect that in this case name suppression will be lifted in due course.

It creates a shocking irony in that Grace Millane has not just been murdered but has had all her dignity shredded. However, frankly I doubt certain UK newspapers really give a shit about that.

The murderer's name must have been released to the UK press by someone in the courtroom. I would have hoped that the person concerned could have been identified and cited for contempt of court, which is precisely what disobeying a court suppression order is.

@MabelMoo23

There used to be a system in Scandinavia that any convicted person was described as "a man" or "a woman" on the grounds that the court had imposed a punishment which was adequate and that any name to be broadcast was ruled as not relevant.

It is good that the defence of "she consented" was ruled out. It is the same here that you cannot consent to an illegal act [R v Brown 1994 Court of Appeal]. There is a move afoot to ban a "consensual" defence

R v Brown, if I remember correctly, said that you can't consent to an assault. It's irrelevant to an argument that death was caused by accident, because the point of the argument is that the defendant did not intend the death. There might still be an assault, but that in itself wouldn't prove murder.

There was another case where a husband branded his wife on the arse with a heated bread knife. It was consensual. He was acquitted on the basis that what he did didn't amount to an assault.

I'm really hoping there isn't a tiny footnote in a provincial paper saying that 'A man has been released/found not guilty of beating, raping and choking seven women today. The Defence successfully argued that the case had been prejudiced through the Defendant's name and picture being published in connection to an earlier trial'

The murderer's name must have been released to the UK press by someone in the courtroom. I would have hoped that the person concerned could have been identified and cited for contempt of court

That's not the case, I followed this from the day Grace went missing and I've known the murderers name since before her body was found. If I know simply from Facebook you can bet the news outlets did too

lalalyra if I’d said any of that then you might have a point but I didn’t.

I was responding to a poster who said naming criminals had no useful purpose and was only done to satisfy mobs. That poster didn’t make caveats about other cases subjudice etc, etc. They said it about naming in general, regardless of the circumstances. Yes it’s perfectly valid to protect other cases and so forth, but that’s not what the other poster said or what I referred to.

There are plenty of reasons why our justice system needs to be as open and transparent as possible outside of legally specified exceptions. Saying naming of criminals only point is to incite mobs is untrue and dangerous. There are documented cases where a rapist has offended and been tried for rape multiple times and got away with it because their identity being protected stopped other victims coming forward and the dots being joined to identity him as a serial rapist.

If there are reasons, fine. If it’s just to virtue signal how superior some people feel from the mob’ then it’s bollocks.