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Defendants named as two papers overturn court orders

Two newspapers have overturned bans on identifying people involved in crown court proceedings after appealing to the judges involved.

The Southern Daily Echo persuaded Judge David Griffiths, sitting in Southampton, that to name a 15-year-old who admitted robbery and grievous bodily harm would be in the public interest.

He and an accomplice left a man for dead after robbing and beating him on waste ground in the city.

A reporting restriction had been in place because of the defendant’s age but on sending him to a young offenders’ institution for four years, the judge agreed that to remove it would be in the public interest.

He would normally have remained anonymous because of his age under S39 of the Children and Young Person’s Act.

In Bristol a man facing child porn charges was identified by the Bristol Evening Post after the newspaper persuaded Judge Lester Boothman to overturn a Section 11 order.

He was in court accused of downloading child porn from the Internet.

Section 11 allows a defendant’s address to remain confidential if there are good reasons concerning the “administration of justice” that it should not be revealed.

The defendant faces 28 charges of making indecent pictures of children and two offences of committing acts which would outrage public decency.

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