A reporter from the Halifax Evening Courier successfully challenged an order banning the naming of a young crime victim – while his former law lecturer looked on.

Reporter Leigh Dowd (pictured) challenged a Section 39 order which had been imposed at Bradford Crown Court.

The order would have prevented the Courier from naming a six-year-old boy who was savaged by a Rottweiler last year.

After the owner admitted owning a dangerous dog, prosecuting barrister Giles Bridge asked Judge Kerry Macgill to impose the Section 39 order to prevent the boy or his younger brother from being named, and the judge agreed.

But reporter Leigh argued that the boys’ names were already in the public domain following a front page story in the Courier after the attack, and the judge conceded.

Senior reporter Leigh, (28), made the challenge in front of the tutor who taught him media law during a post-graduate diploma in journalism at Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds.

David Crossland, who was alongside Leigh on the press bench working for the Bradford-based agency Crabtree’s, where he is a partner, congratulated the reporter on his “textbook” challenge.

Leigh said: “David left it all to me and it was a bit like answering one of his mock exam questions. To the judge’s credit he was very attentive and pleasant.”

Courier editor John Furbisher said: “I think Leigh was more nervous of making a mistake in front of his law tutor than he was of the judge. But he did a great job and deserves a lot of credit.”

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