Attorney General Dominic Grieve (pictured: Reuters) has today withdrawn clauses in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill that would have given him power to order the removal of online archive news stories in the run-up to a criminal trial.

Clauses 37 and 38 were set to introduce new powers allowing the Attorney General and the courts to require owners of online news archives to remove material which might prejudice upcoming proceedings.

If the website operators failed to comply, the proposals stipulated that criminal sanctions could follow in the form of either an unlimited fine or imprisonment.