You can say someone has been murdered or that someone is being sought in connection with a murder, but that must be changed, once someone has been charged/arrested to something much more safe – the defendant may claim it was natural causes.

I haven't read the various other blogs about this but my opinion was very much that Jackie's original post was an appeal for information. Yes she makes a connection between the man in the picture and her ordeal but my experience and instinct tells me she would not be troubled if called upon to defend a libel action.

And sometimes, in my experience anyway, you can make an informed decision – just how likely is this libel action and hey, shall I go ahead anyway?

In this case, the chances of the libel action are small indeed, I would say and all sorts of factors about the man in the picture's reputation could come into play. Who knows? I for one am willing to take such a risk to say to a woman who reports that she has been attacked while others did nothing, to say, do you know what? Some of us do give a sh*t.

I don't know whether it's true but even if I witnessed it and was a 25-year friend of the person involved, I still think we need to be more aware of the consequences of publishing – whether that's on a blog or anywhere else. (isn't the definition of publishing for legal purposes anything that could be read by a third party?)

Let's remind ourselves that this person hasn't been convicted of an offence, and my recollection of media law is that until that's the case, you don't go printing a picture or article that assumes someone's guilt – it prejudices any subsequent legal actions and if that person was found not guilty, I think they might be within their rights to sue you and anyone else who posted their picture with an assumption of guilt…

Sure there are people who've done law more recently than me, but I fear you're on dangerous ground.

Seriously, I thought long and hard about publishing a post too. In the end it came down to whether I thought that Jackie was telling the truth. I have known her for a number of years and although I disagree with her on many things, she is as honest as the day is long.

She suffered an assault and wants it sorting. I chose to help her. You did to. It was a judgement call but then again like most things in life, it usually comes down to that.

Resigning from government was a judgement call too. My motives were the same as yours even though you disagreed with me on the decision.