The Ubyssey newspaper has offered few details about an alleged fourth sexual assault on the UBC Point Grey campus.

"On early Saturday morning, a student was attacked while walking on campus," wrote news editor Sarah Bigam. "The attack followed the pattern of the previous attacks reported by the RCMP. As of Sunday afternoon, the attack had not been reported to law enforcement."

The UBC student paper has declared that it will not reveal the student's name or the paper's source to protect the victim's identity.

In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada issued decisions offering the Globe and Mail and the National Post some legal protection for keeping sources anonymous.

However, the country's highest court ruled that reporters can be forced to identify who they've spoken to when it's "vital to the integrity of the administration of justice".

The National Post case involved journalists Matthew Fraser and Andrew McIntosh, who relied on secret sources to reveal a debt allegedy owed to a Jean Chrétien family investment company.

A legal dispute arose over the authenticity of a bank document.

"In appropriate circumstances, accordingly, the courts will respect a promise of confidentiality given to a secret source by a journalist or an editor," wrote Supreme Court of Canada justice Ian Binnie for the majority. "The public’s interest in being informed about matters that might only be revealed by secret sources, however, is not absolute. It must be balanced against other important public interests, including the investigation of crime. In some situations, the public’s interest in protecting a secret source from disclosure may be outweighed by other competing public interests and a promise of confidentiality will not in such cases justify the suppression of the evidence."

In the case involving the Globe and Mail, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a requesting party must demonstrate that its questions are relevant before requiring a journalist to disclose the identity of a confidential source. This concerned journalist Daniel Leblanc's coverage of the federal sponsorship scandal.

"If the questions are relevant, the court must then consider the four Wigmore factors: (1) the relationship must originate in a confidence that the source’s identity will not be disclosed; (2) anonymity must be essential to the relationship in which the communication arises; (3) the relationship must be one that should be sedulously fostered in the public interest; and (4) the public interest served by protecting the identity of the informant must outweigh the public interest in getting at the truth," wrote Justice Louis LeBel for the court. "At the crucial fourth Wigmore factor, the court must balance the importance of disclosure to the administration of justice, against the public interest in maintaining journalist‑source confidentiality. This balancing must be conducted in a context specific manner, having regard to the particular demand for disclosure at issue."