A senior reporter on a local weekly successfully overturned a court order which banned newspapers from revealing cricket agent Mazhar Majeed had pleaded guilty to involvement in the spot-fixing scandal.

Majeed was jailed for two years and eight months yesterday for his involvement in the conspiracy to bowl deliberate no-balls in last year’s England v Pakistan Test Match at Lords.

At Southwark Crown on Wednesday, Mr Justice Cooke had placed a section 4 order on reports of Majeed’s guilty pleas to corruption during the trial of Pakistani international cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif.

The order meant reporters were faced with not being able to report Majeed, former owner of Croydon Athletic FC, was even in court to be sentenced along with the two players and a fourth co-defendent Mohammad Aamer, who had also pleaded guilty earlier.

But Peter Truman of the Croydon Guardian newspaper approached the bench during the hearing yesterday and successfully made representations to Judge Cooke to overturn the order and allow Majeed’s involvement to be exposed.

The paper were then able to report Majeed’s presence in court, his previous guilty pleas and allowed court reporters to tweet his mitigation during the sentence hearing.

Said Peter said: “I was determined to get the order lifted and expose Majeed’s admission of corruption – a big story given his connections to football club Croydon Athletic.”

Assistant editor Matthew Knowles added: “There were international reporters from every newspaper packing the gallery and it took a nervous but ballsy local newspaper reporter to make representations, using case law to demonstrate the section 4 order should not be applied in this case.

“God bless McNae’s and the latest court reporting restrictions guidelines crib sheet which contains enough law for any reporter to make a challenge to the courts.

“Peter was especially proud after discovering former England International cricketer Mike Atherton watched his debut performance from the press bench.”

Salman Butt, who had pleaded not guilty, was yesterday jailed for two-and-a-half years for his involvement in the affair, while Mohammad Asif was given a one-year prison sentence.

Mohammad Aamer was sentenced to six months in jail.  All will be released on licence after serving half their terms.