Australian who ordered radioactive materials walks away from court

The waste isn't even that bad. There's not that much of it and we have extremely safe storage solutions. We way over engineered the safety by orders of magnitude. Nuclear waste storage facilities can take a direct missile hit and still be safe.

Possibly although given the story about it could go the opposite way.

I think most continental European countries do this. The publishing of names like this seem more like an Anglosphere thing. In Denmark, the press norm is usually first to publish names when they get a prison sentence of 2+ years.

In Germany the full name is not published.

Hard disagree. It's well known that people who are falsely accused of such crimes end up having to live with the damage to their reputation even after a court finds them innocent, because that's not the news story people remember. In such societies, one's life is effectively ruined the moment one is accused.

Innocent until proven guilty, and the same goes for the court of public opinion.

Even if you are arrested in the act of killing someone you may have some defence that means you are not committing murder (e.g. self-defence, diminished responsibility, I think France still has ‘crime in the heat of passion’ as a defence)

Trials are public in Finland, Germany, France etc. In some very severe crimes the name of the suspect may be published. For publicly discussed crimes the names can be usually found in some crime related discussion forums.

People are presumed innocent and their privacy must be protected. The mugshot porn is not good for anybody or the society in general.

In Germany t's illegal to say negative things, or things that would make them look bad, about anyone, living or dead, in any context. Even Adolf Hitler (although that is not enforced).

The court proceedings and decisions are public and can be followed on site and the documents can be acquired by anyone. This is indeed important for transparency and accountability of the system.

However the proceedings aren't streamed and the documents aren't online. Some cases can be published online (e.g. supreme court ones) but with identifying information redacted. I think this is good.

The policy is voluntary by the press, not a law. Although in some cases publishing such information could be deemed violation of privacy if it's not deemed of public importance. And compiling databases of the personally identifying information could be illegal.

The article says “the quantities of material were so small they were safe to eat”

If that’s true, the overreaction and evacuation is higher risk than possession of the elements

You can’t blame Lidden for the overreaction of others

That was a severe overreaction by authorities after they knew he had it for months in trace amounts.

What impact?

The impact of the Australian Border Force overreacting after they (seemingly deliberately) bungled the situation when they were first made aware of the situation?

None of the elements this man was in possession of were either in a quantity or quality to facilitate any kind of hazard to anyone. The response by government was unjustified, and should have ocurred before the materials ever reached the purchaser.

I urge you to learn about and understand the properties of radioactive materials before making judgement on this situation. The quantities and properties (particularly the encasing) of the materials in question largely render them inert. These specimens are not at all abnormal in the scope of element collection, and the response triggered by the ABF (complete evacuation of an entire street (note, not an entire radius???)) is unwarranted given the quantitites and properties of the elements (both pieces of information they knew beforehand).

In this kind of amounts it follows that import of coal should require this kind of license because of thorium content.

The amount is tokenistic and would not have caused dissent held by a school for teaching purposes. He is a good person and this is a stupid application of the law to no benefit.

Since it was imported through postal services and identified there were heaps of opportunities to avoid this.

This is the least worst outcome having had charges brought but it was an overreaction to bring charges.

He did something stupid and nobody got hurt. The law needs to be relatively forgiving in these circumstances. A culture that punishes people that we don't know harshly for mistakes is not a good society.

The amount was so small it couldn't be used to cause harm

Looks like he lost his job though?

The article only said that his solicitor (lawyer?) described the quantities as being so small they were safe enough to eat.

I read some more about it (Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/11/scien... and entirely agree with you that the border force over-reacted, and could have spent the money and resources more effectively than by pursuing this.

Also, via Guardian, this attitude is demeaning and depressing:

>"At a sentence hearing in March, the lawyer described Lidden as a “science nerd” who committed the offences out of pure naivety. “It was a manifestation of self-soothing retreating into collection; it could have been anything but in this case he latched on to the collection of the periodic table,”

Thank you. I only read the second, more recent article, not realizing that their was a prior one.

Case seems ridiculous. Judge's ruling, despite no penalty, is embarrassing because he doesn't seem to understand the lack of danger of such small amounts, AND made gratuitous public statement about Lidden's mental health.