Alison Morris

So what you can't do is you can't name someone until they're charged.

So that is a privacy case in the past.

You could have said, you know, such and such has been arrested for X, Y and Z.

They're under investigation.

We can't do that anymore.

But what we can do is name them.

And there was a reason for that because a lot of, especially if you think about historic cases, maybe look at the Catholic Church sex scandals and things like that.

So, and I covered a case quite recently where a teacher had been accused of sex abuse while he was teaching and then other pupils who he had taught

30, 40 years ago, had read the report and came forward.

So he had decided that there was more value in them being named after when they were facing charges because that was a path to open justice, I suppose.

So we do have a difference and that is why Geoffrey Donaldson is named.

But if he was facing similar charges in the South, he wouldn't be.

I've only ever come across this situation once and I've been a journalist for 26 years and the only other trial of facts, a trial of the facts it's called, that I ever covered was in relation to Ivor Bale who had been charged with allegations relating to the murder of Jean McConville during the Troubles.

So Eleanor Donaldson was facing charges of aiding and abetting and she did appear in court several times in the run-up to this during the preliminary hearings.

But Judge Ramsey was provided with medical reports from two different doctors who had said that she wasn't mentally able to instruct her lawyers and therefore would not be able to participate in the court process.

So she is not in court.

She is facing a trial of the facts and a trial of the facts can find that she was responsible for what she's accused of or not responsible because it's a jury, I'll make that decision.

But she cannot then be treated as if though she's been found guilty and that she will not be sent to prison.

There is scope that a judge can sentence you to a period in detention for mental health reasons and things like that.

But for the purposes of this, she cannot be found guilty.