UNNAMED HORRORS
IN Chester last week, two fathers were found guilty of sexually abusing their chil- dren. Because the children were the men's own, the judge ordered that the culprits should not be named. Anonymity, he believed, was necessary to protect the children from having to live with the public knowledge of what had happened to them. Clearly the judge's decision will afford some protection, but it has ill effects too. It means that, through the very revoltingness of their crime, the men are themselves more protected than they should be. Their case was not reported at great length in the newspapers, because fuller reports would have led to identification. As a result, it seemed as if society did not take the crimes all that seriously. A few column inches on the Cheshire case contrasted oddly with the vast amount of space given to the conviction this week of the Putney rapist. Public knowledge is an important part of the doing of justice. Punishment includes disapproval and disgrace in society as well as the sentence passed by the court. Unnamed criminals do not seem so real and so their crimes seem less heinous. Given what has already happened to the children involved, and presuming that they will anyway now lead new lives away from their parents (in this case, a mother abet- ted the crimes), one wonders whether the judge's understandable concern for them may not do more to shield evil than innocence.
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