A Crown Court recorder reminded the public that “Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done”, as she lifted an anonymity order on a young thug.

Recorder Juliette May used those words as she lifted an order under Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 after a plea from the Bournemouth Daily Echo.

The 17-year-old youth, with a man who was also sentenced, carried out what she described as a “truly shocking piece of violence” on a man who had tried to intervene when he saw a young man spraying CS gas into people’s faces outside a Poole public house. The victim needed 12 stitches to facial injuries after being kicked and stamped on his head.

Echo reporter Louise Isaacs spoke in support of a representation made to the court by executive editor Peter Tate, citing the serious nature of the attack, the public interest in naming the youth as someone with a capacity for violence and the futility in seeking to safeguard his identity when he was a known associate of the older youth.

The teenager was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in a young offenders’ institution and his associate to 21 months. They were convicted of a wounding charge and also of carrying an offensive weapon, a CS gas cylinder.

The Daily Echo has a lengthy record of overturning restrictive orders made on both adults and minors.

“We have even reached a point with the courts where judges’ clerks ring and ask us whether we’re going to apply,” said executive editor Peter.