A weekly paper has won a two-week legal battle to name two teenagers convicted of a catalogue of serious sexual assaults on young girls spanning 15 months.

Croydon Crown Court heard the boys had groped, bullied, abducted, detained and humiliated the girls and been expelled from a local school after their actions came to light.

A gagging order was made banning the publication of their names and that of the school under Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act.

The order was made at a court hearing in which the two youths pleaded guilty to a total of 15 separate charges against five girls.

The Sutton Guardian newspaper said Sutton Council had argued for the gagging order to stay in place after the sentencing, claiming it wanted to protect victims and witnesses.

But the paper said emails shown to the judge made clear that the school had exerted considerable pressure on the council to keep its name out of the papers.

The Guardian argued the offences were so grave that the youths should not be granted anonymity and the community had a right to know who they were.

And at a later hearing Judge John Tanzer dismissed the council’s arguments as “a smokescreen” designed to prevent damage to the reputation of the school.

He said: “There is no merit in mincing words, the primary concern was the reputation of the local school and any issue of identification was only added afterwards.

“I’m unimpressed that all of this is nothing to do with the protection of the children and everything to do with the reputation of the school.

“It is all unrealistic and there is hard evidence that the local authority’s position was conceived not by concern to identify the victims…. [but] the real concern was the naming of the school.”

Assistant editor Matthew Knowles said: “Section 39s are being used in court without any real good reasons and I think any reporter should challenge them.

“If we come across another one we will challenge it and I’ve issued crib sheets to all my reporters.

“I think the courts are on our side and we had a special hearing convened just to hear this Section 39 order.”

The two youths were sentenced 18 months and 12 months at a young offenders’ institution respectively.