A trainee reporter covering court for the first time successfully challenged a court order to overturn an identification ban on a teenager.

The Northern Echo’s Deborah Johnson put her law training to good use in her first week at the paper’s head office.

She was reporting on a case in which a teenager had launched a campaign of abuse against a taxi driver.

The defendant was 17 at the time the offence was committed, but had turned 18 by the time he appeared in court.

The magistrates imposed a court order under section 49 of the Children and Young Person’s Act banning identification.

But Deborah, (left), fresh from the NCTJ pre-entry course at Darlington College of Technology, remembered that a legal precedent had been established which meant the ruling should be overturned.

She challenged the order and was told by magistrates to return within an hour with evidence supporting her argument.

Deborah was back within 15 minutes, quoting a case in April 2003 in which the South Shields Gazette challenged a similar order.

Magistrates in that case concluded: “The way we consider Section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act is that despite the defendant’s age at the time of the offence, his age at the conclusion deems him to be an adult.”

After hearing Deborah’s evidence, the magistrates in Darlington lifted the banning order and she was able to report the case in full.

Deborah, (22), said: “I’d done an exam on it just the week before so it was fresh in my mind.”

Her editor, Peter Barron, said: “Deborah was less than a week into her career when she stood up in court and told the magistrates what the law was. It does her great credit.”