This article contains descriptions of sexual assault.

It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like Alan Jones is finally going to have his George Pell moment. Proceed with caution, because, as was the case with the cardinal, we are entering a minefield.

The facts are that Jones was arrested yesterday and charged with 24 offenses: serious indecent assault, assault accompanied by an indecent act, sexual touching without consent and common assault. There are eight alleged victims (all under the age of consent) and the alleged crimes span two decades. Jones has been released on bail and will appear in court for the first time on December 18.

We can deduce some details from the accusations. The text indicates that some of the alleged offenses took place before 2018 and others after. That year, the old crime of indecent assault was replaced by that of sexual touching. In criminal law, the offense you are accused of is the one that existed at the time you allegedly committed it; the law does not apply retroactively.

There are no accusations of sexual assault, meaning no allegations of penetrative sexual acts. Sexual touching is defined by New South Wales Crimes Act such as touching any part of the body or anything else, directly or through anything (such as clothing), “in circumstances where a reasonable person would consider the contact to be sexual”.

Simple assault charges can involve alleged acts that are physical in nature but not overtly sexual. It is not uncommon to see them combined with sexual offenses in cases of suspected serial offences.

Sexual touching is treated by law as less serious than sexual assault. It covers a wide range of acts, including the proverbial bottom-grabbing and truly egregious violations of bodily autonomy. We shouldn’t speculate about what exactly Jones would have done.

Which brings me to how we got here and how the show is likely to play out. It’s been almost a year since THE Sydney Morning Herald broke Jones’ story, uncovering detailed allegations from several men who said they were raped by Jones over the decades of her very public life.

THE Herald could not resist, in announcing the news of Jones’ arrest, repeating the gory details of what he had previously reported, in the same article. He did not state, as at a minimum he should have, that the charges against Jones were not necessarily based on the allegations published by the newspaper. He only noted that last December, Jones threatened to sue over the story, but did not do so.

The casual reader would rightly remove the impression that the case against Jones is what the Herald reported a year ago. This is problematic because it preempts the entire criminal proceeding by filling the mere outline of the charges with a set of facts and assertions of guilt that may be irrelevant but are certainly prejudicial.

Inevitably, Jones’ case will raise the specter of pending the contempt that haunted the Pell saga from start to finish. This category of contempt of court exists to preserve the integrity of the criminal justice system in particular, and especially jury trials. The rule, in simple terms, is this: from the moment someone has been charged, until all remedies have been exhausted, shut up.

The idea is to preserve the presumption of innocence of the accused, by prohibiting media trials and the attendant risk of infecting potential jurors with predeterminations of guilt. In an extreme case, a trial may have to be postponed (as happened in Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial after Lisa Wilkinson’s ill-advised acceptance speech in Logies) or even aborted altogether.

The courts view this sort of thing with a great deal of disdain and quite a bit of frustration. How hard, the judges wonder in their isolated chambers, is it for everyone to wait for the system to do its job? They will sometimes impose severe criminal penalties for this type of contempt (see Hinch, Derryn).

On social media (including our happy new home in Bluesky), the problem was illustrated in real time. As soon as the news broke, speculation, invective and schadenfreude rained down, while a few wiser heads plaintively posted “please don’t do it, you’ll get him a mistrial” into the void.

The reality is that it will happen and nothing can stop it, because humans are human. When media was not social, newspapers could be forced to conform, and few had pulpits big enough to make a difference (see Wran, Neville). Now everyone holds the mic and pending as a concept has become as anachronistic as using Latin terms as if they must mean something intelligible to everyone.

The courts don’t see it that way and are waging a fierce rearguard action to defend the system’s position that still requires them to wear Santa’s robes when presiding over criminal trials. This means that it is very unwise to speculate on Jones’ innocence or guilt, or to publicly review the evidence before trial. I think the Herald she herself has already exceeded the limits.

But the line cannot hold. The courts must adapt their thinking to the realities of the digital age, with more transparency and less archaism. I am in no way advocating a free-for-all – contempt will continue to be an important bulwark for the rule of law – but willful blindness to change leads to very bad results.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep quiet about the prosecution of Jones because I’d like to see him – fairly – tried.

If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In case of emergency, call 000.

For advice, guidance and support for men in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania who are experiencing anger, relationship or parenting issues, callReference service for menon 1300 766 491. WA men can contact the Men’s Domestic Violence Helpline on 1800 000 599.