Substantial constraints on the freedom of the press tend to accumulate from seemingly small restrictions. Events last week in a court in Antrim in Northern Ireland demonstrate this neatly.
A paedophile was caught sending suggestive emails to undercover police posing as prepubescent girls, and went down for 16 months. Who was he? We will never know.
Why have human rights led to this boxing in of free speech in favour of the frankly undeserving?
Why? The answer is that in court he threatened suicide unless given anonymity. The court gave in to his demand. An injunction now bars any disclosure of who he is for his lifetime, and anyone breaking it, whether in the press or social media, faces a strong prospect of jail time.
Some will see this order, which incidentally followed a similar one in Ulster about a year ago, as no big deal: a restriction, yes, but just a little one, imposed for humanitarian reasons on knowledge of no great significance.
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