Catharsism and the Pelican Club

It’s always interesting to read a Justice Rhys Harrison judgment, if only for their clarity. Indeed, always for their clarity. This week came the release of another judgment in the Stephen Versalko saga, he being the fraudulent ASB banker who acted as a generous-to-a -major-fault patron to a Pelican Club prostitute who we shall call “BC”, because that’s how she’s described in the proceeding. “Herald on Sunday” publishers APN New Zealand wanted to publish BC’s name and had Bruce Gray QC do battle with David Jones QC for BC, along with AB, CD and DE. OK? The result was a win for Jones on the basis that publication of BC’s name would advance only “marginal public benefit” and would be to the detriment of her teenage daughter. Bruce Gray’ “open reporting” argument relied in part upon this year’s decision in Peters v. Birnie, involving Bill Birnie’s argument for suppression of financial information being published. The judge rejected the argument and referred to the lawyer’s “sophisticated rationale of catharsism,” which sounds a bit like something you’d find at . . well, the Pelican Club.

Short URL: http://screaminglawyer.com/?p=596

Posted by admin on Jul 8 2010. Filed under Legal Exotica. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry