A judge has refused to allow the media to name a 14-year-old boy who admitted stabbing his teacher, saying the teenager’s welfare had to come before public interest in his crime.
The Sun had made an informal application to the judge at Bradford crown court to lift an anonymity order protecting the boy, and other children from Dixon Kings academy who witnessed the attack on science teacher Vincent Uzomah in June.
The boy had admitted grievous bodily harm with intent. On Monday he was given an extended sentence of 11 years, with six years in custody.
Under section 39 of the Children and Young Person’s Act, reporting restrictions had granted anonymity to the boy. The act contains a provision allowing a judge to dispense with anonymity in relation to a child or young person after conviction.
Guidelines from the Crown Prosecution Service say: “This power to dispense with anonymity must be exercised with very great care, caution and circumspection ... The principal aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending, including re-offending. Identification of a youth may be detrimental to his own rehabilitation and that of other young people related to him or detained with him.”
Addressing the judge from the press bench, the Sun reporter Paul Sims argued that it was in the public interest for reporting restrictions to be lifted in relation to the defendant.
He quoted from Mr Justice Coulson’s judgment in Leeds crown court, which allowed the media to name William Cornick, who murdered his teacher, Ann Maguire, at Corpus Christi Catholic College last year. Public shaming had a “clear deterrent effect”, Coulson had ruled, adding: “Ill-informed commentators may scoff, but those of us involved in the criminal justice system know that deterrence will almost always be a factor in the naming of those involved in offences such as this.”
Sims also said that the boy had already been named in the media before the restrictions came into force.
The Sun’s application was opposed by Richard Canning, defending the boy, who argued that his rehabilitation would be put in jeopardy were his identity to be widely known. “He would be dealt a hammer blow if the whole world – or at least the country – knows who he is,” said the barrister, telling the judge that the Sun’s story was not easily accessible. “Your honour, it would take you a good 15 minutes to find his name if you Google it,” he said.
Refusing the application, the judge, Jonathan Durham Hall QC, said the application posed a “very legitimate question” which would “strike a chord with some”. Freedom of the press was a “major feature of our society which must be protected”, he said, adding that the Bradford boy’s crime encompassed “every aggravating feature one can sensibly imagine”. The argument that naming and shaming a defendant acted as a deterrent wasn’t some academic argument and could in fact be part of the rehabilitation process, said the judge.
But he ruled against the Sun, citing the “sheer logistics of the sentence”, which meant the boy would probably be released before he was 18, the age at which the section 39 order would no longer apply. The custodial part of the boy’s sentence is six years, meaning he will probably be released on parole after three, when he will be 17.
He also said that the defendant was “not in the same category” as Cornick, who repeatedly stabbed Maguire to death and never showed any remorse for the attack. He said Coulson’s ruling was not intended to set a precedent and that the Bradford boy’s identity should remain protected.
“His welfare must come first and the public interest must give way,” the judge ruled, citing section eight of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees respect for private life.
