Regional journalists have won a battle to name a teenager convicted of killing two boys in a case of mistaken identity.

ITV Regional News joined forces with ITN, BBC and Sky to successfully get reporting restrictions lifted in the double murder case in Bristol, the victims of which were 16-year-old Max Dixon and his best friend Mason Wrist, 15.

The application allowed journalists to name Kodi Westcott, who is now 17 but was 16 at the time of the murders, who was convicted along with Anthony Snook, 45, and 18-year-old Riley Tolliver.

The court heard how the group had been on “a joint mission for revenge” following an attack at a property and the victims, who had nothing to do with the attack, found themselves in the “wrong place at the wrong time”.

After sentencing at Bristol Crown Court, the media organisations argued there was a strong public interest in naming Kodi in order to inform public debate about knife crime and the effects of postcode-driven violence in the Bristol neighbourhoods of Hartcliffe and Knowle West.

They were represented by Clare Wisson, from Doughty Street Chambers.

Lifting restrictions, judge Mrs Justice May said: “In terms of the public interest in reporting, Kodi’s was a central role in these offences: it was his house in Hartcliffe which was attacked and he was there alone with his mother at the time.

“It was Kodi’s brother Bailey who made calls and came over before the group left with Snook in the car, and Bailey who organised cleaning them up by burning Kodi’s and [redacted]’s clothes on their return.

“Finally Kodi was a principal offender in both murders, having inflicted the single fatal wound to Max and (as I am sure the evidence demonstrated) one of the two fatal wounds to Mason.”