Devlin catches on

Vaimoana Tapaleao in the NZ Herald reports:

Sports broadcaster Martin Devlin – the celebrity who was arrested and charged with disorderly behaviour – says he sought name suppression to protect his children from embarrassment. But doing so only made things worse, he admitted yesterday.

Yep. If his lawyer advised him to do so, he was very badly advised. The quest for name suppression generated far more publicity for Devlin, than he would have attracted for a very minor offence. And it was of course ineffective. Even though there were no blatant high profile breaches of the suppression order, his identity became well known through word of mouth.

“I sought name suppression in an effort to try and protect my children from being identified and embarrassed by my behaviour,” he said in a statement to media. “Obviously the only effective way to prevent that was not to do it in the first place.”

Indeed.