NSW Attorney-General Hatzistergos blunders into a political farce

While everyone is supposedly thundering for the convicted individual's blood, the NSW Attorney-General is managing to make himself a small target over his announcement of the suppression order that wasn't.

A resident on the NSW North Coast was found guilty of sexual assault on a minor and, was give a two-year suspended sentence with a two-year good behaviour bond.
In line with the judge's directions any details which would identify the victim were suppressed and could not be reported in the media.

Then the Attorney-General John Hatzistergos inserted himself into the debate about this sentencing.
On 4 March 2009 he stated in a radio interview with ABC North Coast Mornings (the politically convenient line) that the entire judgment was suppressed and so he couldn't discuss the judge's reasons for the sentence.
At least one member of his staff contacted a local Northern Rivers newspaper saying that any mention of the defendant in the court case was suppressed and it was in breach of an order.

Both the Attorney-General and his staffer were of course wrong.

So what was the outcome of the Attorney-General's attempt to distance himself from the somewhat heated debate over Judge Chris Geraghty's swan song?

Why on 6 March The Sydney Morning Herald's Richard Ackland, in a sincere effort to explain the sentence, released details of the assault which were otherwise unpublished in the area in which the victim lives.
The same day Andrew Bolt in his The Daily Telegraph blog allowed himself another free kick for his boring colour bias.
Then on 7 March The Daily Examiner gave the most left-handed compliment to the defendant's barrister, David Imlah, by implying that possibly guilty people would be lining up for his services.

Well done, Mr. Hatzistergos - you turned a tragic set of circumstances into political farce and probably made the situation worse for one little child.