Re: I don't know...
Microsoft screwed up here, and badly. You're right - the best choice would have been to move both employees, so that they're not meeting each other every day. If the accusation was false, moving both would reduce the accuser's ability to bully the accused; if it was true, being apart would prevent problems at a subsequent trial ("but you spoke with my client regularly in your office? Surely you could not have been as traumatised as you claim ...").
Your question about anonymity has a local answer if you want to look into it further: In Irish law, accused rapists remain anonymous unless convicted, on the grounds that knowing identity of the accused can easily allow identification of the victim (remember that most victims of rape know their attacker). However, this provision often means that convicted rapists are not named either, because in many situations, doing so would remove the victim's anonymity. It's common here for victims to renounce their right to anonymity after a conviction is secured, just to ensure that their attacker is named.
But the Irish law primarily exists to protect the victim, not the accused. The risk of false accusation isn't significant, because the overwhelming number of charges of rape are based on real attacks. To hear some people talking about it, you'd swear every second accusation was malicious, but the FBI's figures in the US put the false claim rate at just under 2% - the same level as for other crimes (of all classes). Bear in mind that this 2% figure is of those cases where a police complaint is made- there are many victims of physical assault who cannot bring themselves to make an official complaint - the reporting rate for rape is believed to be as low as 12%.
... It's also sad to see some regular and vehemently anti-Microsoft commenters lining up to support the company's cack-handed actions in this case. I guess they can overlook "pure evil" when it has the side-effect of keeping uppity wimmen out of a "real man's industry".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
