Sigh.
Clearly that was one of those jokes that just went whoosh and killed a goose overheard.
I’ve often thought this, too, especially for sex crimes, where even being accused of being a paedophile or rapist is enough to ruin a man’s life (and there’s always the canard about “no smoke without fire”, even if the accused is found innocent at trial).
Permitting “closed trials”, where the accused requests it, would fix this (it also sounds slightly authoritarian, and would never catch on: “UK engages in Nazi style secret trials” etc.), whilst still allowing the accused a public trial, but would also remove one motivation of malicious women falsely accusing men of rape.