A judge who barred newspapers from naming a paedophile has lifted part of the contempt of court order.

But he has warned that identifying the man – who had admitted to 20 charges of making and possessing indecent images of children – would breach another part of the same gagging order aimed at protecting his children.

Judge Warwick McKinnon accepted a submission on behalf of a group of media companies including Newsquest and Trinity Mirror, which said that the court had no power to make an order under section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to ban the media from naming the defendant as his name and details had already been given in open court.

But he said he did have the right to keep in place the part of the section 11 order which banned the publication of anything which would identify the man’s two daughters and that, in his view, publishing the defendant’s name would automatically identify his children.