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Tagged curfew girl to remain anonymous

A Midlands newspaper has been prevented from naming a 12-year-old girl who was electronically tagged by the courts and handed a strict curfew.

The Derby Evening Telegraph failed to persuade magistrates to allow the naming of the girl responsible for a major crime spree in a suburb of the city.

She was convicted at Derby Youth Court last month of burgling a house in Normanton with intent to steal and damaging a television aerial and has just been sentenced.

The bench decided that, on balance, the public interest which would be served by identifying her would be outweighed by the infringement of the girl’s human rights as a juvenile.

But the Telegraph wanted her identified in the interests of the people of Derby – not, as the bench might fear, as a way to increase her punishment, or to boost sales figures among people who might want to know who she is.

The paper’s leader column said: “The public needs protection and has the right to be able to guard against the danger of the girl offending again.

“The court’s hope, naturally, is that this will not happen, and that her supervision order will succeed in putting her on to the straight and narrow.

“We share that hope, for everybody’s sake.

“But as the magistrates also saw fit to require the girl to wear an electronic tag on her ankle, it does not appear to be a confident aspiration.

“The youngster has been an habitual crook. She has stolen from shops, burgled houses, carried out assaults, vandalised property and carried a four-inch kitchen knife in the city centre.

“One of her burglary victims has been so traumatised that she is afraid to stay in her own home.

“Householders and traders need to know who this girl is. If they did, the chances of her continuing as a serial offender into her teenage years and beyond would be much reduced.

“And that would surely be in her own best long-term interests as well.”

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