Two regional dailies succeeded in overturning a judge’s order banning the media from identifying a student who made a false rape claim.

Hannah Byron, 20, admitted a charge of doing an act tending or intended to pervert the course of justice at Teesside Crown Court.

At an earlier hearing, Judge George Moorhouse imposed a restrictive order under Section 46 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999.

However when Byron appeared for sentencing last week, the Northern Echo and the Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough argued that the order was too stringent and the judge overturned his original decision.

The judge had been concerned that identifying the defendant would lead to the identity of the man wrongly accused of rape being revealed.

However the newspapers argued that not only was the order unlawful, but it would be safe to fully report the case without identifying the man in question.

Northern Echo editor Peter Barron said: “The challenge was made by our court reporter Neil Hunter who rightly recognised that this was an inappropriate order, wrongly protecting someone who had committed a serious offence. I am delighted that it was overturned.”

Byron, of Eldon Street, York, was given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and 150 hours of unpaid work.

The court was told she had been trying to win back a former boyfriend with the false rape claim.