Hi All,
As you are aware this thread was locked earlier today. We would like to explain our reasons and we hope that everyone will understand and appreciate why we have taken this action.
The subject of this thread is a delicate one and it raised a number of concerns regarding the legal ramifications of naming people who are only under investigation and that have not been charged. With this in mind we actually sought some legal advice to clarify where OER stood.
Firstly, this situation involves a lot of “what ifs” and as a result it can be called “a grey area” but we must do what is in the best interest of this site.
Here are a couple of things we have been told:
If there is a suppression order in place saying the person cannot be named (we are unsure of this) then to publicly name them you are considered in “contempt of court”.
If you name someone and they are subsequently NOT CHARGED with an offence then you can be subject to a defamation case. The legals we spoke to sighted the Justin Koschitzke case and Channel 7.
They said that a key point was that information contained on web-sites is considered published and in the public domain.
Having taken into consideration what we have been advised we feel we are left with no choice but delete any references to any players and lock this thread. As we said at the beginning we are doing what is in the best interest of OER.
This was not a decision that we have taken lightly and we would hope that everyone will understand and support our decision.
Regards
MT & WP
