Why name suppression is bad
Stuff reports:
The woman convicted of a massive fraud against the Ministry of Transport (MoT) was previously convicted of a substantial fraud – but it was under a different name and that name was permanently suppressed, until now.
On 22 June 2007, Joanne Sharp pleaded guilty to five charges of forgery, using a forged document, altering a document, using an altered document, and obtaining by deception.
Joanne Harrison was sentenced to three years and seven months in jail for the misappropriation of $725,000 from MoT. She’s since been released and deported to the United Kingdom.
A Stuff Circuit investigation reveals Harrison had seriously offended under a previous name – Joanne Sharp – though the connection has never been able to be made public, because of the suppression. …
The charges related to her time as a senior manager at Tower Insurance.
A source told Stuff Circuit, “Joanne Sharp’s modus operandi when she defrauded the MoT was strikingly similar to her conduct when she defrauded Tower, particularly how she used her senior position to intimidate and bully anyone who stood in her way”.
She was convicted in July 2007 of all the charges, and sentenced to 300 hours’ community service.
At a subsequent hearing she was granted permanent name suppression, including details relating to her son and his identification.
In his decision at the time, Judge Roderick Joyce QC said: “I saw – and still see the present [offending] as involving a one-off situation”, and “…in my judgment the possibility of reoffending is in no way on any kind of cards”.
Well he got that one wrong.
If she had not got name suppression, then she wouldn’t have been able to commit these further frauds. Permanent name suppression where someone has been found guilty should only be used in exceedingly rare cases.