Chair-sniffing victim identified

May 12, 2008, 9:15pm,  236 views

The Australian on Saturday identified Troy Buswell’s chair-sniffing victim as former Liberal Party staffer Karry Smith.

The West Australian and The Sunday Times have reported the woman’s story, but not her name.

I’m not sure why the other papers haven’t named her. If it’s in the public interest to report the issue, then surely the public has a right to know who the complainant is.

We discussed it briefly in the office this morning and there were arguments for and against.

Defenders of maintaining the woman’s anonymity described her as the victim of sexual harassment and said her privacy should be protected.

As I understand it, when sexual harassment cases are heard in court or the Industrial Relations Commission the parties are named (although I might be wrong).

If you take it a step further and consider the woman a victim of sexual assault, then it would be appropriate not to name her.

But no formal allegations of harassment have been made, let alone assault.

And Perth being the insular capital it is, literally thousands of people would have known the woman’s name by word of mouth.

Maybe The West Australian and The Sunday Times agreed not to name her in exchange for interviews. If so, The Australian is not bound by those agreements.

I thought the digging into Smith’s background though was a little excessive. The relevance of her divorce, for example, escapes me.