The Oxford Mail has finally won its tortuous two-month fight to name a sex offender, battling legal principle and court staff confusion.

In January the Mail covered the sentencing of a 23-year-old Oxford man for attempting to have sexual intercourse with a 12-year-old girl.

Its reporter, Phil Vinter, was handed a scrap of paper by court staff claiming the defendant’s name could not be published “under section 39 of the Contempt of Court Act”.

After explaining that this power did not exist, Phil was given a proper order banning identification under section 11 of the act.

Judge Bruce McIntyre had been asked by the defence team at the sentencing hearing to continue a naming ban made at the plea and directions hearing, having been told, like the recorder before him at the earlier sitting, that the defendant was a vulnerable man who could be bullied in prison and/or might kill himself.

The Mail objected on the grounds that the fears for the safety of the defendant were not exceptional because he had been sent to a normal prison for 15 months and his name had already been in the public domain because it had been said in open court and was on an Internet court listing.

But the Mail’s fight was made doubly hard because the court log did not state which power the recorder had originally used and there was no copy of the order – contrary to usual directions. There was also the possibility of a catch-all common law order being issued the court on the issue.

Group news editor Jason Collie said: “Initially it was mooted it might be section 39, which couldn’t be used for an adult obviously, then section 11 and then it was thrown in that it might, just might mind, be common law powers. But no-one actually knew for a fact, which is ridiculous.

“It seemed like we were fighting on shifting sands of any old power thrown in and trying to cover all bases.”

Newsquest’s legal head, Simon Westrop, told Judge McIntyre that section 11 should not be used to stop the media naming defendants to spare them embarrassment and that this case was not exceptional.

Defence barrister, Anand Beharrylal, argued that common law power could be used and that the defendant had been under the influence of his girlfriend, who was also jailed for aiding and abetting him and was at risk of harm.

He floated the argument that if his client killed himself before he ended his sentence or his time on extended licence then the administration of justice would be frustrated and so section 11 – prohibiting publication of a name “as necessary” – could be used.

In a reserve decision last week, Judge McIntyre agreed with the Mail that only statutory powers could be used against the press and that neither sections 4(2) – which would postpone a report of the proceedings – nor 11 were applicable. He also refused the defence team a suspension of the revocation so they could go to the High Court to appeal.

Jason said: “This has been time-consuming and frustrating because we knew the case was relatively straight forward but we had this will-of-the-wisp order and all the connected admin mistakes which made the fight more difficult.

“Ultimately it was a satisfying and important victory to win. If we had left it in the ‘too hard’ basket then at Oxford Crown Court we would have had similar claims of risk to defendants used against us. It was a slippery slope.

“Full credit to the judge because we had been critical in the paper of him, yet he listened to the arguments fully.

“Now we have the legal battle out of the way, we’ll sit down with the court hierarchy to go over this scrap of paper we were handed, the lack of any paper trail on the original order and the fact they managed to break their own order, while it was in force, twice by publishing the defendant’s name on their Internet lists.”