A regional daily has revealed the £215,000 cost to the taxpayer of ferrying a prisoner to and from court which left parts of its patch on “lockdown.”

The Liverpool Echo was unable to reveal the identity of gang boss Liam Cornett during his trial, during which “dramatic scenes” of his prison van being escorted daily through the streets of Liverpool prompted dozens of requests from readers for further information about who was inside.

A Freedom of Information request by the Echo has now revealed the operation to ferry Cornett, nicknamed ‘The Lam’, between HMP Manchester and Liverpool Crown Court during his trial cost Merseyside Police £215,323.

During proceedings a series of trials linked to Cornett’s case had meant the newspaper could not name the 29-year-old, whose journey to and from prison each day saw traffic stopped in Liverpool for minutes at a time while armed officers also patrolled the court precincts.

Cornett, pictured, was jailed for 26 years last month after being convicted of a massive Class A drugs conspiracy.

In a piece published after his sentencing, Echo crime reporter Joe Thomas wrote: “The dramatic scenes led to dozens of requests to the Echo for details over who was within the prison escort van. But reporting restrictions essentially prevented this information becoming public.

“While armed police were visible to many in the city centre and the court, those on the jury would not have known the security related to one of the defendants in their case.

“Knowing of the precautions taken around Cornett could have prejudiced their deliberations.”

Joe told HTFP the reporting restrictions had placed the Echo in “a difficult position.”

“While restrictions didn’t specifically cover the convoys, because we couldn’t report on the trials they were linked to, we couldn’t really report on who the convoys transported,” he said.

!This did mean that, when they were over and we could finally reveal who was in the respective convoys, there was a huge amount of interest from readers.

“And we could breathe a sigh of relief knowing we would no longer have to fend off the queries they prompted with vague responses that could only say they contained a defendant in a court case. ”

Following the trial, the Echo submitted an FoI request on the cost of the policing operation which took place between place between May and August last year, and it has now published the response.

Emilia Bona, the journalist who submitted the request, told HTFP: “The interest from readers during the trial was tricky because we were inundated with questions about going on, but when we explained why we couldn’t report on it for the time being, people seemed to understand.

“The FoI itself got a mixed reaction from people, some of which can be seen in the Facebook comments here. The article itself was read by 21,000, so a decent audience for a follow-up.”