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Advertiser hit by last-minute naming ban

The Newark Advertiser has been banned from naming a 17-year-old involved in a fight outside a kebab shop – even though it had already identified him in previous reports on the case.

The youth was one of six people to appear at Newark Magistrates Court for sentencing, but when district judge Melvyn Harris turned his attention to the 17-year-old he announced without notice that he was closing proceedings and reconvening them as a youth court.

The move meant that although the Advertiser had published his name legally in the past, it could not name him when it reported on the sentences received by the youth and some of his older co-offenders.

The district judge said that if the youth had acted on his own, the anonymity applied by a youth court hearing would automatically be in force.

And despite an application from Advertiser reporter William Harrison, the judge said it was not in the public interest to name the youth – who was sentenced to four months in a young offenders’ institution.

Newark Advertiser editor Harry Whitehouse said the decision had meant the judge had made himself the story, rather than the case itself, adding that readers could easily find the youth’s name by checking its archives – but it could not point this out to them.

He told HoldtheFrontPage: “Yet again a member of the judiciary has showed himself to be a bit of a wally.

“It’s alarming that that the judiciary system was so keen to issue restrictions on the press on a matter that was of great interest to our readers.”

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