I’M not a big fan of the radio presenter Paul Gambaccini but I deplore the disgraceful way he has been treated by the police.

He was suspected of having committed sex offences and his name was leaked by the police on the sly. We know why the police go in for this deceitful slandering of people who might have committed no crime: it is – and the police themselves admit it – in the hope that, by disclosing the name of their suspect, they will encourage other victims to come forward and add plausibility to the prosecution’s case.

The police also add insult to injury by bailing and re-bailing their suspect for as long as they like. Mr Gambaccini told a parliamentary committee that he lost earnings, while legal fees had cost him more than £200,000 as a result of his being kept on bail until the case against him was dropped last October.

Keith Vaz, chairman of that parliamentary committee, said: "Suspects deserve to remain anonymous until charged.”

Mr Vaz is right. He added: "Police use of the 'flypaper' practice of arresting someone, leaking the details, then endlessly re-bailing them in the vague hope that other people come forward, claiming to have been assaulted, is unacceptable and must come to an immediate end. It is inexcusable that information about suspects is released to the media in an informal, unattributed way.”

All sex crimes are deplorable. But then so are other types of crime such as murder and robbery with violence. The names of those suspected of these equally deplorable crimes are not made public until the suspect is charged. Why single out sex offences for this unjust treatment? We know why, of course: after details of the appalling offences of such as Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith were made known, sex offences have become the premier league of all crime and the police have assumed – rightly, unfortunately – that the public will tolerate their unjust treatment of those accused in the hope that this will lead to more convictions.

But it is always wrong to act unjustly in the hope that some future good will come of it. The police defend their actions by claiming that if the defendant is innocent he has nothing to fear. Well, for a start, this argument presupposes a perfection in our judicial system that the system does not possess. We all know that sometimes things go wrong, and we even have a phrase for this: “miscarriage of justice.” Mr Gambaccini, among many others, has been punished severely for crimes he did not commit. Not just in terms of lost earnings and astronomical legal fees, but to his reputation. True, he was declared innocent, but we know that there are always those who cry: “No smoke without fire.”

Owing to the vicissitudes of human nature, someone acquitted of offences will always be remembered as "the bloke – or the woman – who was involved in that murky affair”.

The whole point about justice is that it is particular. Someone is accused of having committed a particular crime, tried for it and pronounced guilty or innocent by a jury of his peers according to the evidence. It is good to bring a sex offender to justice. But it is atrocious for the police surreptitiously to name their suspect in the hope that other possible victims may be alerted and come forward to testify.

Victims are allowed anonymity. This must also be afforded to suspects. If the police wish to name their suspect, then let them charge him with a specific offence.