The Bath Chronicle has scored a legal victory, winning the right to name a school at the centre of an abduction case.

The paper had been following the case of a teacher who has been sentenced to five months in jail after admitting to taking a 14-year-old schoolgirl to London without the permission of her guardian.

But following the case at North Wiltshire Magistrates Court a Section 39 order was made, banning the press from naming the school where the girl was a pupil.

Magistrates said the order would protect the girl and by not naming the school it would help her identity to remain secret, despite several recent newspaper reports which had all named it.

Now following a challenge by the Chronicle’s lawyers, the Crown Prosecution Service has overturned the ban.

A fax from the court confirmed the ban had been lifted.

It said: “No objections CPS or Defence. Application allowed. Section 39 Order amended to lift reporting restrictions with regard to naming of the school only.”

Chronicle deputy editor John McCready said he was pleased the ban had been lifted.

He said: “There are three major schools in Trowbridge and we didn’t think that naming the school would identify the pupil.

“There are around 2,000 pupils at the school so we felt a blanket ban was unnecessary, especially as it had already been named by various media, including us, before.

“It was relevant to the story and we felt that having already named the school, it would be strange then not to do so.”

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