The Manchester Evening News has won a court victory enabling it to report the result of an important legal test case.

London editor Ian Wylie successfully challenged a High Court order preventing the media from publishing anything which might identify the teenage daughter of a man who hanged himself in prison.

Jon Brannan and Bernard Murphy were convicted of murder in 1992 after the killing of a man outside a Manchester nightclub. Both protested their innocence.

In January 2002 the Appeal Court quashed their convictions, ruling they were unsafe. Bernard walked free but father-of-two Jon Brannan had committed suicide three years before while still behind bars.

His daughter Lineker Brannan, (17), along with Bernard Murphy, went to the High Court last December to challenge a Home Office decision not to award them compensation.

But the court order banning identification of the teenager had the effect of preventing the Manchester Evening News from publishing any details about the case, which had received prominent coverage in the newspaper since the killing.

Ian Wylie told Mr Justice Richards and Mr Justice Pitchford that, even with identification details removed, it would be obvious to a wide section of the MEN's readership who the case involved.

He submitted evidence that the girl had provided a comment about her father to the paper as part of reaction to the Appeal Court's 2002 decision and had also then posed for photos in the newspaper.

Lawyers for the girl did not oppose the newspaper's application, so Mr Justice Richards lifted the reporting restrictions.