The Judicial Registrar granted a pseudonym order to conceal the identity of a person alleged by the applicant to be a police informer, relying on the public interest in maintaining confidence in Victoria Police's ability to protect informer identities. The Court accepted that this public interest alone was sufficient to warrant the order, without needing to consider evidence of specific risk of harm to the individual, and that the Chief Commissioner's policy of neither confirming nor denying informer status supported the need to pseudonymise both actual and merely alleged informers. No affidavit evidence was required where the Court could draw on its own experience regarding police intelligence matters, following ABC v D1 [2007] VSC 480.
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