A man suspected of child sex abuse who was arrested but faced no charge has lost his battle in the Court of Appeal to use privacy laws to stop the press and media naming him in reports of a criminal trial.

Last October,  a High Court judge rejected the man’s application for a privacy injunction against the publishers of the Oxford Mail and The Times.

Lawyers for the man, who can still only be identified as PNM, challenged the decision of Mr Justice Tugendhat to reject the application, but  on Friday the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal.

PNM, who lives in the Oxfordshire area, is now expected to try to appeal to the Supreme Court for a final ruling. Meanwhile journalists remain banned from naming him.

He was one of a number of men arrested in March 2012 in connection with “Operation Bullfinch”, a Thames Valley Police investigation into allegations of child sex grooming and prostitution in the Oxford area.

After his arrest on suspicion of committing serious sexual offences against children, PNM was released on bail. He was never charged with any offence. In July 2013, police notified him that he was to be released without charge, but that his case would be kept under review.

Nine other men were charged and tried at the Old Bailey in 2013. Seven of them were convicted of numerous serious sexual offences – including rape and conspiracy to rape children, trafficking and child prostitution – and the case attracted wide publicity.

PNM had first obtained an order under section 4 (2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 from Wycombe and Beaconsfield Magistrates’ Court in March 2012.

The order postponed publication of details of police applications made to the court in relation to property belonging to him and was to run until PNM was charged with any criminal offence.

Upholding the judge’s decision to reject the application, Lady Justice Sharp said: “The ordinary rule is that the press may report everything that takes place in open court.”

This was a strong rule which could only be displaced by unusual or exceptional circumstances, and any application to depart from it had to be carefully scrutinised, she said.

Media reporting of court cases “directly engages the public interest and has an intrinsic value”, added Lady Justice Sharp.

“There can be no doubt in my view that the open justice principle was engaged in this case even though the appellant was not himself a party to the criminal trial.”

The court ordered that the judgment would remain anonymised and the section 4(2) orders would remain in place until PNM’s application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court was finally determined or until further order.

If the application was not pursued or failed the orders would be lifted and his full name would be substituted for the initials.