Thomas Sinclair (Provided)

Thomas Sinclair, the editor of the Ceredigion Herald, was found guilty by a Welsh court of identifying a sex crime victim. Now, he must pay a total of £3,650 (or around $4,700 U.S.).

In the UK, there is a law that protects victims of sexual offenses from ever being identified in the media. The Sexual Offenses Act of 1992 bans any broadcast or print media outlet from identifying victims.

Sinclair’s Ceredigion Herald newspaper had published a June 2016 news story, “Peeping Tom Pays the Price.” The article included the name, age and job of the “peeping tom,” iMediaEthics previously reported. It didn’t name the victim but stated how she knew the “peeping tom.”

The judge, Judge David Parsons, ruled the article included enough information where readers could possibly recognize the victim’s identity. Parsons explained, according to the Ceredigion Herald, “On the facts of this case I am satisfied that there was a real risk, a real danger, a real chance that members of the public would identify the victim.”

Parsons added, according to the BBC: “This court must be mindful of the real psychological harm to the victim, harm confirmed by this victim in her victim impact statement.”

The victim had said in a court statement: “Finding out about the article has set me back and means the stress of this case is not over as it means there is now another court case involving me.”

Sinclair denied identifying the victim, instead arguing it wasn’t possible to identify the victim and that, additionally, the article was probably not read by enough people to be a problem.

iMediaEthics asked Sinclair about the May 12 verdict and he pointed us to his statement in the Pembrokeshire Herald. In that statement, Sinclair called the verdict” badly wrong” and  said it contained “errors of law.”

Sinclair added that he intends to appeal the verdict, telling iMediaEthics the appeal will be in about six weeks. “I maintain that there was no likelihood of the information in the report leading members of the public to identify the complainant,” his press statement reads. “I will be appealing against both the conviction and sentence, and fully expect that the District Judge’s decision will be overturned by the higher Courts.”