Though Robert “Bob” Gommeson was convicted and sentenced in 2016 for the horrendous abuse of nine children, he was protected by an order that prohibited the publication of his name.

On Wednesday, Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg agreed to revoke the order in a win for Gommeson’s victims in a climate of criticism of the courts over increasing secrecy.

Tracey May, a survivor, has been fighting to name Gommeson since his conviction.

“It gives us, the survivors, our voice back,” Ms May said.

“It is one of the biggest reliefs, but it’s more the empowerment and knowing he can’t hide behind a suppression order any more.”

Gommeson brutalised nine children, the youngest of them just five years old, between 1967 and 1983.

The 68-year-old, who was working at Hastings, attacked two children in the police station and another in the back of a divisional van.

In one incident, he held his police-issue revolver to the head of one of his victims as he raped her, according to the victim’s testimony to the County Court in 2016.

A parent reported him to police in 1979, but he wasn’t charged. Instead, Gommeson resigned from the force and moved to New South Wales, where he offended against another seven children between 2005 and 2011.

Gommeson, who was sentenced to jail for the NSW offences in 2014, pleaded guilty to the Victorian crimes and was sentenced to at least 15 years in prison in 2016.

When the Victorian proceedings first began in 2012, a suppression order was put in place to ensure a fair trial.

But because it was made under the Magistrate’s Court Act, there was no expiration date. Such orders now should have an expiration date of five years under the Open Courts Act.

When the case progressed to the County Court, the higher court did not revoke the order and nor did it issue a new one, but Gommeson remained protected under the pseudonym Lewis Goddard.

“I faced him in court and I wasn’t afraid for the first time in my life. And then to be told I couldn’t speak his name,” Ms May said.

“He can’t be protected.”

After highlighting the case as part of The Age’s secret state series, Ms May and The Age applied to revoke the order.

In lifting the order on Wednesday, Mr Rozencwajg described its existence as an “anomaly”, saying it should have been lifted by the County Court earlier.

Ms May said she hopes other survivors can find courage from her story.

“Victims do have rights. We, as survivors, don’t have to sit back. I just want to be able to say to them don’t stop, don’t give up,” she said.

“And don’t be ashamed. No one should be ashamed.”

The secret state series emphasised that despite the changes in the Open Courts Act to improve the transparency of the legal process, restrictions on what the public can and can’t know appeared to be getting worse.

Former Court of Appeal judge Frank Vincent wrote in his review last year that Victoria was responsible for more than half of the country’s suppression orders, more than every other state and territory combined.

Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies said while orders were often made to protect victims, victims were not being asked what they wanted.

“It’s been deemed by everyone to be irrelevant,” he said.

- The Age