Danny Leef captured on CCTV trying to use the credit card belonging to Shevaughn Johnstone that he stole from her after she crashed her car in Papakura in November 2017. Photo / Supplied
Danny Leef captured on CCTV trying to use the credit card belonging to Shevaughn Johnstone that he stole from her after she crashed her car in Papakura in November 2017. Photo / Supplied
Editorial
EDITORIAL
The public now rightly knows the name of a man who robbed a seriously injured crash victim after the Herald successfully challenged his bid for permanent name suppression.
It was finally revealed this week Danny Leef took the opportunity to rob a woman of her wallet and iPhone justmoments after a car crash in Papakura in November 2017. He then went on a spending spree over the next several hours using Shevaughn Johnstone's credit card. Johnstone, meanwhile, was unable to be identified by paramedics because her ID was in her wallet.
Leef was arrested and Judge David McNaughton later sentenced him in the Manukau District Court to 12 months' imprisonment for this and other charges - and also decided to permanently suppress his name last August.
The decision to forbid publication of his identity, which came despite written opposition from the Herald, was based on the judge's belief any publicity could severely compromise Leef's alcohol and drug rehabilitation. The judge also decided naming Leef could also damage his mother's reputation and the urban marae, Te Tahawai Marae, which the Leef family were intimately connected to.
Ultimately, the High Court agreed with an appeal by the Herald. Leef's name in regards to other offending of driving while disqualified, drink driving, breaching community work, failing to answer bail, and providing false details had also been suppressed, and this was also overturned.
While we certainly have sympathy for innocent parties caught up in the publicity around crime, it is part and parcel of offending and being caught that it will cause embarrassment to family and wider associates of the offender. You commit the crime, there can be impacts close to home.
The Herald has not taken lightly such expensive action in this case. It has been done in the interests of transparency, a principle we fervently believe central to our court system. It's called open justice. Photo / File
Within the Criminal Procedure Act, there are grounds to suppress names if publication would be likely to cause extreme hardship to the person charged with, or convicted of, or acquitted of the offence or any person connected with that person. The High Court agreed with us that there was no evidence of "extreme hardship" likely to occur to anyone in the case, apart from the victim who, incidentally, opposed the suppression order but was never asked her opinion by the judge.
It is not for a court to try to mitigate humiliation, and embarrassment is not extreme hardship.
It has cost the newspaper and parent company thousands of dollars in legal fees and staff resources to overturn this suppression order. We do not take such expensive action lightly but in the interests of transparency, a principle we fervently believe central to our court system. It's called open justice.
Leef's crime, while despicable in most right-thinking New Zealanders' minds, was hardly major on the scale of offending but the comforting cloak of secrecy should never have been afforded him.
Confoundingly, the New Zealand Bar Association criticised the Herald for our coverage of the case, which included citing other examples of court decisions we believed to be inconsistent with the application of the law. The association said: "Balanced, informed and fair criticism is one thing. Personal attacks and sweeping generalisations are not acceptable."
Let's be clear, this was a criticism of the decision, not the judge. Our coverage was fair, balanced and accurate, based on accounts of a district court judge's decision in open proceedings and the subsequent actions we took in challenging it.
When the wrong call is made on name suppression, we will call it out.
