Three Christchurch businessmen will have to wait to learn if the courts will end the widespread speculation about the identity of the company director who was found guilty of trying to hire a 12-year-old girl for sex.
Car dealer Rick Armstrong, KBs Bakery owner Kim Buckley and furniture manufacturer Paul Hunter
have all been wrongly targeted as the 37-year-old businessman who won name suppression after being caught in a police sting operation last year.
In the High Court at Christchurch, Justices Graham Panckhurst and Lester Chisholm reserved their decision to a police appeal against permanent name suppression.
Justice Panckhurst said that among the issues troubling the court was what emphasis to place on the unprecedented public furore generated by the name suppression issue among those with a "redneck mentality".
The businessman's lawyer, Jonathan Eaton, claimed the sensational media coverage had "created a sense of hysteria, a lynch-mob mentality" that made naming the man now unfair.
Justice Panckhurst said that while the case had been "well reported immediately afterwards by the print media, within days the debate had degenerated and facts of the case had been forgotten and the facts didn't stand in the way of a good story".
"If there had been publication of his name in January, coupled with the [newspaper] report, the whole thing would probably have passed without further comment.
"It would have lasted days and then been fish and chip paper," he said.
"I don't think I've experienced a situation where the issue of suppression has gained so much momentum as this one. The difficulty is that now this is a major issue - it's national news - and the impact on this man is clearly going to be 10 times worse than if there had been publication in January."
Mark Zarifeh, for the police, contended that Judge Christopher Somerville had erred at the time of his decision for name suppression by placing too much emphasis on the effect that naming the businessman would have had on his employees and on his assessment of the man's risk of reoffending.
He said the decision also ought to be overturned because of the effects that had become apparent afterwards, including the slurs against Mr Armstrong and others.
Mr Eaton said the name suppression was part of a rehabilitative sentence imposed by Judge Somerville and should not be revoked.
- NZPA
Three Christchurch businessmen will have to wait to learn if the courts will end the widespread speculation about the identity of the company director who was found guilty of trying to hire a 12-year-old girl for sex.
Car dealer Rick Armstrong, KBs Bakery owner Kim Buckley and furniture manufacturer Paul Hunter
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