A new law that gives anonymity to sex case defendants until conviction could lead to many cases going unreported.

The Sexual Offences and Obscene Publication Bill was given its third reading in the Legislative Council at the end of October, bringing it one step closer to the statute book.

Controversially, clause 140 provides automatic anonymity to defendants accused of sexual offences unless and until they are convicted.

This is the first provision of its kind in Manx law.

Victims of rape cases are afforded anonymity under the existing sexual offences act 1992.

The legislation doesn’t just ban the reporting of a defendant’s name and the publishing of their photograph, it also outlaws the disclosure of any information that could lead to their identity being revealed.

This includes the accused’s address, school and their place of work.

It states: ’Where a person is suspected of or alleged to have committed an offence ... no matter likely to lead members of the public to identify the person shall during the person’s lifetime be included in any publication’

But the anonymity clause only applies to the Manx media, and the same case could be covered without restriction in the UK press.

This could lead to the risk of what it known as ’jigsaw identification’ where readers can piece together the information of a case from two different media sources.

In practice this could mean that Isle of Man Newspapers not risking covering a case at all for fear that the missing details could be reported elsewhere.

We would end up covering only the sentencing following a successful conviction - and much of the evidence that emerged during the trial would go unreported.

The Bill does include a ’backstop’, clause 144, that allows a judge to lift the naming ban in the public interest if it is judged to be ’substantial and unreasonable’ restriction on the reporting of proceedings.

What is deemed a ’substantial and unreasonable’ restriction has yet to be seen.

But where a big case attracts international coverage, the above test could be met.

There is also provision for the prosecution to apply for lifting of the restriction in various circumstances.

Another difficulty is where a media organisation has an online presence of which the Isle of Man is just a part.

How could the BBC report a case online but BBC Isle of Man could not?

A spokesman for the Department of Home Affairs said: ’If the website had an Isle of Man presence and an article naming a defendant on it was published, the bill talks about the editor having committed an offence, and the penalties are specified.’