Kent
Messenger Group court journalist Keith Hunt has succeeded in getting a
judge to lift a Section 39 order which banned identification of a
16-year-old boy who shot and killed a man with a crossbow.
Judge Warwick McKinnon had allowed the order to stay in force during the trial at Maidstone Crown Court.
But Hunt applied in writing for the order to be lifted if the teenager, Daley Bibby, was convicted of murder or manslaughter.
Bibby was convicted of manslaughter and will be sentenced on 24 January.
His
QC, David Nathan, submitted that the order should remain, asking:
“Would the public interest be served in publishing the name of a
16-year-old convicted of manslaughter?” Hunt argued in his letter to
the judge that it would be in the public interest due to the serious
nature of the offence.
The judge agreed. “I take the view there
is a serious public interest due to the gravity of this case of
manslaughter, as it now is, such that the order should be lifted and
Daley Bibby’s particulars now be put in the public domain,” he said.
Bibby,
from Welling in South East London, appeared in court with two
18-year-olds who were cleared. He fired the crossbow bolt into his
victim’s chest at close range in a clash over his relationship with a
girl.
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