Sensible Sentencing Trust not the first victim?

Those upset about this case…

The Human Rights Commission plans to prosecute the Sensible Sentencing Trust for breaching a serial paedophile’s* privacy.

It stems from the trust printing the man’s name and details of his offending on its website. The commission says this breaches his privacy because the trust does not mention that he has name suppression.

However, neither the paedophile nor the commission have been able to supply a court record to prove he has name suppression.

…would do well to also note this one.

Robert Henderson is due to appear before the Human Rights Tribunal on November 30 for telling a nursing home one of its employees was a drug addict.

In 2003, Henderson rang the nursing home and told the charge nurse that a caregiver, who was on a methadone programme, had asked for opiates at his practice.

Earlier this year, the High Court at Wellington found Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff’ wrongly ruled against Henderson.

Shroff found the doctor could not provide adequate reasons for his actions and should have only told the home’s manager.

However, the judicial review found it was not up to Henderson to prove the threat and he had told the correct person.

He was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Perhaps a reporter could chase up with Dr Henderson?

I found this comment telling:

Dr Henderson said he was standing up for the rights of the elderly, even though he could walk away now with the settlement paid for by the Medical Protection Society.

“It is a matter of protecting the elderly and it is about their human rights,” Dr Henderson said.

There seems to be a consistent thread here where the HRC is standing against the rights of the public to be protected. I believe this earlier case is far worse, as it goes against the clear ruling of the courts. But the most recent case is very disturbing too, as you have a lack of evidence seen as grounds to prosecute where it should have killed the case from the start – especially given all that’s left is the word of a known liar and pedophile.

* This characterization has been disputed.

Update: The decision  on Dr Henderson is here. He was cleared by two of the 3 “judges”, with the third taking offense with his view that drug addicts were not to be trusted to the point where she wrote a minority report. Even the majority report takes pains to clarify that they had no love for the man they cleared:

[71] There is, however, a postscript. It does not follow from the fact that we have found that Dr Henderson had reasonable grounds to believe that there was a serious and imminent threat to patients at the nursing home, that we accept and agree with all of the evidence he gave, or the matters that he regarded as being important. We did not. At several points in his evidence Dr Henderson referred to other situations he regarded as being relevant, and gave some surprising evidence to the effect that a threat of contracting the HIV might not be so serious. The complainant is entitled to know that we have reached our conclusion despite these aspects of Dr Henderson’s evidence, not because of them. The reasons for our conclusions go no further than those we have set out in this decision.

Update 2: It can’t be emphasised enough: the doctor in this case was persecuted because he rang a rest home to tell them they unknowingly had a drug addict working for them. In an organisation that’s keeping drugs on site, that’s a biggie and it boggles the mind that she was not instantly fired – not for being a drug addict, but for the blatant lie. That sort of information is not something you would withhold in such a situation.