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Telegraph overturns court's ASBO ID ban

A quick scan of McNae’s and some sharp team work helped the Derby Evening Telegraph name the youngest boy in the city to receive an anti-social behaviour order.

Twelve-year-old Aaron Garbutt was given the order by Southern Derbyshire magistrates on February 28. He had vandalised property and threatened residents over a long period in Chaddesden, Derby.

His defence team had asked the court for an order preventing his identification.

To argue against this, deputy news editor Emma Slee ploughed through McNae’s and contacted crime reporter Paul Bull at court with details of a case at Shrewsbury Crown Court in 2000, when Judge Michael Mander lifted a banning order imposed previously by local magistrates to prevent the Shropshire Star from naming a young ASBO.

The subject had appealed against the order and, during the hearing, Judge Mander said there was no point in issuing an ASBO if the subject’s identity was kept secret.

Paul Bull said: “Magistrates asked both myself and the Derby Community Safety Partnership anti-social behaviour team whether we had any representations.

“Firstly, ASB officer Mandy Douglass told the court that she believed it was in the public’s interest for people who received ASBOs to be identified as they were put in place to protect the community and that the public played a major part in helping enforce them.

“She also said that in Derby, ASBOs had proved successful, fulfilled their purpose and were, therefore, not seen as a badge of honour.

“I then reiterated what Mandy had said and explained that the restrictions imposed in ASBOs made it essential for the public to know who was subject to them.

“I said that the Home Office supported the identification of people issued with ASBOs, regardless of age, and that to prevent us from identifying them would defeat the whole purpose of the orders. I said it would be impossible for them to be effective if the public didn’t know who the person was or what they looked like.”

Magistrates during Garbutt’s case agreed, rejected the defence application and head of the bench Clifford Warner, said: “We feel it’s necessary, in the interests of the public, and they can play a monitoring role.”