A judge has granted a regional daily the right to name a teenage killer who used a machete to murder a pensioner.

Restrictions preventing the Coventry Telegraph from naming Kieron Spicer, pictured, were lifted after Judge Andrew Lockhart KC told Warwick Crown Court there was “no good reason” to keep them.

Judge Lockhart told the court he believed there was “strong public interest” in “full and unrestricted reporting” of the case.

Spicer was just 16 when he and 44-year-old accomplice Antoinette Shepherd, with whom he was in a “bizarre relationship”, lured 72-year-old Michael Brady to a flat.

Spicer, now 17, repeatedly struck the elderly man to the head and shoulder with the weapon, before stamping on his chest, crushing several bones.

Then Sheppard used a blue rope to strangle Mr Brady to death, as he “begged for his life”.

They later went on a spree with the pensioner’s cash cards, using the PIN number they had tortured him for, to withdraw money.

The pair were originally convicted in December but Judge Lockhart lifted the order at Spicers’s sentencing hearing earlier this month without requiring an application from the Telegraph.

He told the court: “Taking into account all of the circumstances in this case, I find there is no good reason to retain reporting restrictions following Kieron’s conviction and sentence.

“In my judgement, there is a strong public interest in full and unrestricted reporting of what is plainly an exceptional case.”

Spicer was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment while Sheppard was jailed for a minimum of 30 years.

HTFP has approached the Telegraph for a comment.