States reject move to name and shame young offenders

Friday 4th December 2009, 2:59PM GMT.

Deputy Trevor Pitman

PROPOSALS to give courts new powers to name and shame young criminals have been rejected by the States.

Members yesterday voted by 39 to two to reject Deputy Trevor Pitman’s proposition to give courts the power to name under-18s convicted of serious crimes – with his wife, Deputy Shona Pitman, the only Member to vote with him.

His proposition would have empowered the courts to lift the legal ban on naming youths over 12 convicted of murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery or serious assaults. An amendment by Senator Ben Shenton would have increased the age threshold to 16 – but it was also defeated, by 33 votes to 12.

Deputy Pitman said that he wanted to make young people accountable for their crimes and said that youths who had committed the most serious offences did not deserve the benefit of anonymity.

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