Andy Muirhead, I’m sure you know was suspended without pay from his TV and radio work at the ABC and the TV show was not presented last Friday.  The ABC announced that it was to be stopped indefinitely pending the outcome of police charges of possession / accessing child pornography.

Greg Barns piece at Unleashed is a well-considered one – attacking the ABC’s cowardly treatment of the presenter of the popular show “The Collectors”.  And it is curious that Greg’s blog is closed after just one comment – from the moderator saying that the blog is closed for (unspecified) legal reasons.  It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to work out who’s about to get their legs sued off here.

Barns is apparently a lawyer and he attacked the ABC for suspending Andy Muirhead on the basis of an as yet untried and unproven charge, denying him the natural justice right of presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

I think that Barns’ attack is entirely reasonable.

Suspension from duty often follows a situation where, if the charge is ultimately proven, the continuation of active service creates unnecessary risk to the community, say a bus driver found with a high blood alcohol level or a surgeon accused of professional negligence.

While I in no way deny the serious criminality of the possession or accessing of child pornography, surely the ABC’s actions open the possibility that an otherwise fair-minded person in the street might assume some level of guilt applied.    A person in the street might assume that an employer of a person in the public’s eye ought to consider the ramifications on the man’s career of a suspension without pay and the quality of justice already meted out to him if he is found to be innocent.

When the story of the charge broke, it was shocking.  And one could be forgiven for imagining that the police had such strong evidence that the outcome of the trial was likely to be a foregone conclusion.

Now it doesn’t matter either way.  The damage, one might argue is already done.  But woe-betide the decision makers if the case cannot be proven, or if there is some other explanation for digital mischief creating reasonable doubt.

While it’s understandable that the ABC faced a difficult public relations problem, it’s also not very surprising that they have acted as they have – particularly when the Chasers got a three week suspension and were forced to eat a truckload of humble pie for merely producing a single skit in bad taste.

An as-yet unproven charge of possession or accessing child pornography ?  Way too tough for this ABC, so far to the right side of centre.

Only time will tell.