The Northwich Guardian has been cleared of any wrongdoing in carrying YouTube footage on its website that showed youths throwing fire bombs at a freight train and setting it alight.

The paper also published stills of the anti-social behaviour taken from the video – which the youths had uploaded themselves – under the headline ‘yobs on film’.

But the father of a 15-year-old boy who took part in the incident said the paper should not have identified his son, claiming it involved his welfare and so breached Clause 6 (Children) of the Code of Practice.

After investigating the Press Complaints Commission said the paper had acted correctly on a matter of public interest, and did not uphold the complaint.

The Northwich Guardian said it had made clear that 15-year-old had posted the video onto YouTube himself, and it had merely embedded the video on its own pages before running stills in the paper.

It said the community had a right to know about the incident.

The PCC agreed and said there were numerous reasons why the Code had not been breached.

It said it was not designed to prevent the exposure of an anti-social or criminal act taking place in public, and there was a public interest in publicising the incident.

In its ruling it added that the newspaper had not itself photographed or interviewed the youths, but had used information that had been made public voluntarily by the perpetrators themselves.

The PCC said the newspaper’s decision to use the YouTube footage meant that the editor was responsible for its content, which was covered by the terms of the Code, but it had no intention of restricting the paper’s legitimate right to report such incidents.

It said claims that the still pictures were enough to identify the boy were debatable, and the accompanying article had not named anyone involved.

The YouTube footage was clearer, but this did not matter, as innocuous pictures taken of children in public places do not normally breach the Code.

It said: “One consequence of anti-social or criminal activity is public scrutiny and, providing there are no legal restrictions, this will involve the publication of stories in the press.”