Due to a four-year-old law unique to NSW, media companies were forced for the second time in two days to remove anything that might identify the children - despite their names and photographs having already been published in newspapers, on television and on the internet.

An amendment to Section 11 of the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act in 2004 makes it an offence to publish information that may tend to identify a deceased child, even indirectly, with any criminal proceedings. Although it was introduced to protect the child and its family, when the accused person was a member of the family, it protected them too, according to arguments against the law.

The in-house counsel for Fairfax Media, Richard Coleman, described the law and the difficulties complying with it in the circumstances this week as "a shambles and uniquely convoluted". According to Anne Flahvin, a media law expert with the global firm Baker & McKenzie "it's a bizarre law that appears to have no reasonable basis, particularly in circumstances when a parent has given permission for the children to be identified".

Greg Baxter, a spokesman for the Right to Know coalition of media companies, said there was "a complete lack of clarity about what can and cannot happen and what the media's responsibility needs to be" with the whole question of naming children "terribly confusing and dramatically in need of reform".

The law has prevented the naming of deceased children - and close relatives with the same name accused or convicted of killing them - in high-profile criminal cases. Although there is no prohibition beforehand, a dead child cannot be named after charges have been laid - unless, following a further amendment introduced last year - permission is granted for identification from a senior next of kin.

Dean Shillingsworth, the toddler whose body was found in a suitcase in a pond last year, was able to be identified after his mother was charged over his death because his paternal grandmother had a custody order and gave her permission.

In the case of the Cowra children, their father gave the media permission to identify his children on Tuesday but he is unlikely to have discussed it with his former wife who was in an induced coma on Tuesday following surgery.

A spokeswoman for the NSW Police State Crime Command agreed it was unprecedented for the force to send an advisory as it did after 6am yesterday warning media companies that continued identification of the children was illegal after the father revoked his permission. "We simply provided assistance by relating his withdrawal of permission through the media", she said, citing previous instances where the force had helped victims of crime.

The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions is currently not taking any action against the any media company. JUSTICE HAS A NAME This is the perverse result of this state's over-zealous attempts to protect children - even dead children - from publicity. The law in NSW is a denial of the maxim that "justice must not only be done but … be seen to

be done". Editorial - Page 12