[Closed] Jeremy Forrest and .....................

Hooray for the thought police!

Communism for the 21st century - freedom of speech, provided you only say what you're told you're allowed to say.

You might reasonably expect a crime reporter or newsdesk to be aware of a fresh court order restricting identification in this case, but not anyone else.

On the other hand, I don't think that this girl deserves any different treatment to any other involved in such a case. Social media presents a real headache in these situations, and I don't know how you fix it.

The woman is a fool.

When is it *ever* ok to name the victim of a child abducter/abuser?

Social media presents a real headache in these situations, and I don't know how you fix it.

But this wasn't a case where a girl had run off with her teacher, and we weren't supposed to know the name of the girl.

This was a missing person appeal, with her name and face posted everywhere and shouted from the rooftops. Social media was only one outlet, her face was everywhere! Not the kind of genie you can put back in the bottle.

Dave

You mean the girl Renault used to name a car before the ZOES of the world stopped Renault using girls' names. Anyhow, [url= http://www.europe1.fr/Faits-divers/Megan-rapatriee-son-prof-emprisonne-1255733/ ]what gagging order?[/url]

Incidentally if he hadn't been a qualified teacher and her his pupil he wouldn't have done anything illegal here.

Sure, the missing persons appeal was a necessary evil, but the sooner her name isn't repeated on social media every five minutes, the more people will forget it and she can hopefully stand a small chance of going on to have a normal life.

Actually, I'm struggling to remember her name now. I'm sure I could Google it. That's the point of stopping the publication of her name from now onwards for the rest of her life.

The headache is that the vast majority of people publishing material on social media are not aware of this legislation and court orders, and unfortunately, as in the recent case of the footballer rape, the only way to make people more aware is to prosecute people who publish the name of victims or alleged victims.

Sorry, but why exactly is there a need for people to bandy about the name of a child who may well be the victim of a sex crime ?

"Sex crime", it was professional misconduct in Bordeaux. However in the UK you consider it sex crime.

Sorry, but why exactly is there a need for people to bandy about the name of a child who may well be the victim of a sex crime ?

There isn't any need, but nor is there a need to prosecute people who repeat a name which is common knowledge and has been all over the front pages of the press as well as the internet.

Notwithstanding that, I think martinhutch makes a good point. It would be nice if there was a middle ground though - discourage people from constantly naming her, but no need to prosecute people who had no idea there was a court order!

Dave

Even journos ride roughshod over courts legislation when they feel they can get away with it, and it is only the threat of the big stick which stops them prejudicing proceedings and breaching orders on a daily basis.

I once got hauled up in front of an Old Bailey judge years ago (for a contempt in a headline my editor had written against my firm advice), and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was only the fact that the trial had just collapsed due to an unrelated issue that stopped us getting prosecuted.

Even quite intelligent reporters can have a moment of madness. I remember when one of my esteemed former colleagues hit the button to publish a story at the start of the Harold Shipman proceedings headlined 'Dr Death appears in Court'.

Unfortunately, the cross section of idiots on Twitter is no better than a cross section of journos, and perhaps even worse, so I don't think gentle dissuasion is going to cut it.

You would have thought that public figures getting done for contempt would send out a signal, but I doubt even that message would get through to most.