Probably cops

Stuff reports:

A public servant has appeared in court after allegedly dragging his partner along the floor by the hair, before beating her.

The man is one of two senior Waikato public servants due in court this week charged with assault.

The cases are unconnected, with the second defendant accused of having assaulted two people – one allegedly a family member.

Extensive suppression orders prevent naming or giving details of the occupations of either of the men, who are from different Waikato towns.

I have zero information on either case, or the identity of the two men.

But the codewords used by the media are easy to decipher.

If you are a “senior public servant” and also live in a town, well 99% of the time you must be a police officer. You don’t see a lot of Ministry of Health offices in Huntly or the like!

Note again i have no actual information on the cases, and am just making an educated guess. As I don’t know the identity or occupations of either man, I can’t be breaching a suppression order.

The point I am making is that the media have effectively pointed to the occupations by using a combination of generic role and location that narrows it down.

It’s like the time I was the off the record source for a story for a newspaper in the early 1990s and they referred to me as a “Senior Young National” in Wellington. I somewhat irately pointed out to the reporter that they might as well have printed my name, date of birth and photo as the description was so obviously me!