The Court of Appeal has refused an application to preserve the anonymity of a man who pleaded guilty to murder as a child but had turned 18 by the time his sentence appeal was heard.
The application concerned reporting restrictions under section 93 of the Children Act 2001. The court held that the section applies to a person under 18 and does not extend its protections to someone who reaches adulthood before the proceedings conclude.
The man sought orders preserving his anonymity in the appeal. His counsel argued that the section applies to appeals even if the child has since turned 18. They said that protecting young offenders from publicity supports rehabilitation and that denying anonymity to people who age out before appeal could interfere with their right to appeal and treat them differently from those whose appeals are heard before they turn 18.
The Director of Public Prosecutions opposed the application. The DPP argued that the statutory language was clear: it applied to children, defined by the Act as people under 18, and contained no provision extending anonymity to adults whose involvement in proceedings began while they were children.
The court said section 93(1) provides reporting restrictions for proceedings concerning a child before any court, while subsection (5) applies the section to appeals. Read together, the provisions protect people who remain under 18 during an appeal, it found. Extending that protection to adults who had aged out would require adding words to the statute, which the court said was not its role.
The judges noted that the case raised an issue about the relationship between the subsections, but concluded their terms were clear and unambiguous. They said there was no need to turn to the Act’s purpose to resolve the question and that the separation of powers prevented the court from changing the provision to achieve a result it might consider desirable.
The Court of Appeal refused the orders sought. This ruling concerned the anonymity application; the judgment states that the underlying appeal challenged the severity of the sentence, but does not give its outcome here.