Releasing Names to Public?

Big news story in England at the moment. A young girl was kidnapped and they have a suspect that they are questioning but do not have enough evidence to arrest.

My qualm with this is that if this guy is genuinely innocent, his name is flashed all over the news and his life made hell until it’s all over. People will be suspicious of him the rest of his life.

Am i missing something? What is the benefit of releasing his name other than to create a media circus? should it be allowed?

I’m not 100% sure but I think that in this case, the reason for the man’s name being released is that he’s in Portugal. Under English law, I think that would be deemed to be prejudicial to any future case. At least I hope so.

It should definetly be allowed, they just shouldn’t do it.

Just like the whole escort dealy, they should have the right to release whatever information they want, they just shouldn’t.

I don’t see how releasing a person’s name is beneficial to the legal proceedings in any way.

All it means is that someone who has yet to be proved guilty has their name tarnished, there’s been plenty of false date rape allegations here in the UK (as I’m sure there has in the U.S.) where a person’s name has been paraded across the media, only for them to be acquitted.

Even if they are guilty, how does it help?

[quote]majicka wrote:
I don’t see how releasing a person’s name is beneficial to the legal proceedings in any way.

All it means is that someone who has yet to be proved guilty has their name tarnished, there’s been plenty of false date rape allegations here in the UK (as I’m sure there has in the U.S.) where a person’s name has been paraded across the media, only for them to be acquitted.

Even if they are guilty, how does it help?[/quote]

Yes you get a lot of that. The poor guy gets treated like a rapist until finally we all find out that the girl was making it all up.

Also you get a lot of people arrested on conspiracy to cause terrorism only for it to never even go to trial. These guys are then branded terrorists for the rest of their days…

What you guys didn’t get is that the poor guy was an attention seeker. He saw a stage, he saw the mikes and the cameras, and he jumped on it.

He went to the press. He volunteered to help as a mediator since he spoke Portugese. He then mentioned several times the girl looked a lot like his daughter.

So he started acting suspiciously and drew attention to himself.

Now all of a sudden he doesn’t want his name out?

That’s not how it works.

I think he’s probably innocent.
I think he’s also a stupid fuck who got himself in trouble.

There are plenty of honest decent people out there who are in trouble without any fault of their own. Let’s worry about them first.

[quote]Wreckless wrote:
What you guys didn’t get is that the poor guy was an attention seeker. He saw a stage, he saw the mikes and the cameras, and he jumped on it.

He went to the press. He volunteered to help as a mediator since he spoke Portugese. He then mentioned several times the girl looked a lot like his daughter.

So he started acting suspiciously and drew attention to himself.

Now all of a sudden he doesn’t want his name out?

That’s not how it works.

I think he’s probably innocent.
I think he’s also a stupid fuck who got himself in trouble.

There are plenty of honest decent people out there who are in trouble without any fault of their own. Let’s worry about them first.[/quote]

Fair enough, poor example. But you get my point.