The Crown Office is to appeal against a court decision which cleared the Press and Journal in Aberdeen of breaking the law by naming a 15-year-old boy accused of murder.

The newspaper’s publisher, Aberdeen Journals, was charged with breaching the Criminal Procedure Act after it took the decision to name Luke Mitchell as the teenager charged with the murder of Edinburgh girl Jodi Jones on April 15 last year.

The Act bans publication of details which would lead to the identification of anyone under 16 involved in criminal proceedings before a court, and the case hinged on whether proceedings were active when the paper published the name.

Last month the newspaper was acquitted at a hearing at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, but the Crown Office has now decided to appeal. No date has yet been set for the hearing.

Fiscal depute Caroline Mackay had argued that proceedings were active because a petition warrant had been granted for Mitchell’s arrest on April 7, and he should not, therefore, have been named.

She said that people under 16 involved in court proceedings were protected by the court.

But Paul Cullen QC, for Aberdeen Journals, argued Mitchell, who was recently convicted, had not appeared in court when the article was published and the paper had not mentioned the warrant. He said that by naming Mitchell the paper had not broken the law.