A weekly newspaper has lost its appeal to name 14 prisoners on the run for crimes including manslaughter, drug trafficking and fraud.

The Ministry of Justice has rejected the Kent Messenger’s bid to identify the convicts currently on the run from jails in the county after a Freedom of Information battle.

The Messenger exclusively revealed the inmates were still at large in May, below, after an initial FoI request was made to the department.

The MoJ provided the details of the convict’s crimes and the date and location of their escapes but refused to reveal who they were, citing data protection laws.

The Messenger appealed this decision, arguing in order to bring the offenders to justice their identities should be made public.

But now, two months on, the MoJ has turned the appeal down.

A spokesman said: “In the original response you were told personal information is exempt under The FoI Act. I have examined whether the conclusion reached in the first response was correct, and I have concluded that it was.

“Your original request for the name, date of birth and address of the individuals you listed was considered under the Data Protection Act to be ‘personal sensitive data’ and would be released only where absolutely necessary to satisfy a risk-assessed lawful purpose and only then with robust safeguards in place.”

The Messenger has named one of those the department refused to identify as Monique Dwyer, now 30, who had three and a half months left on a term imposed in 2004 for manslaughter when she absconded from East Sutton Park women’s prison, in Maidstone, in 2006.

The paper now plans to appeal to the Information Commissioner over the decision.

Ed McConnell, senior reporter at the Messenger, said: “The initial response and subsequent outcome of the appeal is depressingly predictable and nonsensical.

“The term ‘data protection’ is thrown around so often by press departments, particularly ministerial ones, that it’s lost all meaning and now just seems like an easy get out.

“In a time when FoI is increasingly under threat it’s massively important responses which aren’t up to scratch are challenged and press officers giving excuses which don’t make sense are questioned; even if the outcome remains the same.”

The decision comes almost a year after Birmingham Mail revealed that a request for the names and pictures of 10 long-term on-the-run suspects was refused by West Midlands Police because of “data protection rights”.

Mail crime correspondent Nick McCarthy had submitted a Freedom of Information request asking for the details of 10 men on the force’s wanted list – four for murder, four for attempted murder, one for rape and one for immigration offences.