The Daventry Express’s Amy Olive got a double result when she persuaded Northampton youth court to name a persistent anti-social behaviour order offender.

Amy is a first year trainee at the weekly and succeeded in allowing publication of the identity of seventeen-year-old Jamie Wykes, who received one of the first anti-social behaviour orders in Northamptonshire in July 2000.

But Amy’s success went beyond the confines of the court.

In the last 12 months, during court recesses she spent her cigarette breaks talking to Wykes’s mother Mandy Wilkins.

The time was well-spent, because Amy (left) got not only an exclusive interview with Mandy after Wykes’ last trial, but also secured pictures of her son for publication.

Editor David Granger said: “It was a long haul: the courts weren’t prepared to listen to reason or acknowledge precedent but Amy, together with colleagues, kept objecting in court every time he appeared.

“And he appeared often. We made at least 20 representations to various magistrates and youthcourts.

“It was testament to Amy’s tenacity, her legal knowledge and ability to foster contacts that we not only got to publish Wykes’s name and picture but got his mother’s side of the story as well.”