The stigma of being charged with a sex crime is not over even after a person is found innocent. Being named, argues Bettina Arndt, can bring ruin for everyone involved…. but his real fortune stems from living in Toowoomba, perhaps the only town in Australia where the names of people accused of sex offences aren’t published unless they are convicted. In this one-newspaper town, the decision by editors at The Chronicle to suppress defendants’ names unless they are convicted means only the guilty suffer the public spotlight. “Three cheers for the Toowoomba Chronicle,” says the relieved defendant, who says the publicity would have ruined him and his family.

The Age