A HIGH Court bid by convicted sex offender Gary Allen to keep his name secret and out of the Grimsby Telegraph was thrown out on Friday. Deputy editor Michelle Hurst explains the background to the court battle.

HOW far would you go to defend your principles?

I have been working on a case involving the Grimsby Telegraph for several months and it was a matter of defending what we believed was our duty to inform our readers on a serious matter of public interest that took me to the High Court on Friday.

Sitting in court is a regular part of the Telegraph's routine. Sitting in court as the named "defendant" in a High Court case is a rare occurrence.

But it was our determination to defend our right to inform readers that a convicted sex offender was living in Grimsby that took us to court.

Gary Allen moved to Grimsby last year. As soon as he moved here, police began proceedings to issue him with a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) and an interim order was initially granted last April, before a final order was put in place in November.

The conditions of the order mean that Allen, who moved from the West Marsh to Scartho during his stay in Grimsby, cannot enter any red light area, approach a prostitute, enter a massage parlour or carry certain sexually-explicit material.

But he didn't want the people of Grimsby to know that he had been given the SOPO and so he began proceedings to obtain an injunction against us publishing the detail.

Although it had been put in place during a public court hearing, the detail of which any media could have obtained, Allen's lawyers, Roy Foreman Solicitors, named the Grimsby Telegraph as the "defendant", in a move the High Court judge would call "procedurally flawed".

Effectively, had the injunction been granted, the Telegraph would not have been able to print details of the SOPO, but other media bizarrely could have!

The Telegraph challenged the right to name Allen at every stage of the proceedings, during hearings in Grimsby in April, July and November last year. The police, too, wanted Allen named as informing every sex worker in Grimsby that he was living here was an impossible task.

It is understood there are 144 known sex workers in the town, but what about those who work underneath the radar?

The judge, however, at those earlier hearings put in place two orders – one banning publication of his address and one banning publication of his name in connection with the reporting of the SOPO.

What it did not do, we believed, was prevent us from printing the fact that Gary Allen was living in Grimsby – as a warning to all women and, in particular, sex workers in our town.

So we did, on February 16, publish his details, having liaised with police as the consequences of naming and picturing him were obvious.

Because legal constraints and court orders are not always clear cut, depending on their interpretation by the judge, we were taking a risk. A real risk that could have been very costly.

But because the injunction hearing was due to be heard at the High Court on Friday, February 25, there was a possibility that, had Allen's lawyers realised only a more wide-ranging "super injunction", the likes of which you will have read about in national media involving celebrities and sports stars, would have given Allen anonymity, we might never have been able to report Allen's residence in Grimsby at all.

So we felt the risk was worth taking – and we, and our lawyers, were confident that we were not breaking the court orders.

Allen's legal team immediately went to see the district judge to argue that we were in contempt of court. Papers submitted to the High Court claimed the same.

And so, heading to Leeds on Friday for the hearing, I had no idea what could happen.

What did happen was a result for common sense – a judge defending the right of "freedom of speech".

Mr Justice Coulson said he wanted to make it very clear that the Telegraph had not been in contempt of court by printing the articles on Allen.

That was one hurdle.

The other involved fighting the injunction.

As you will be aware, events over the past week had meant that the application was always going to be doomed.

As a result of our February 16 article, Allen was moved by police to Scunthorpe, where, just days later, he was arrested for allegedly breaching the SOPO by entering a red light area and approaching a prostitute. He was arrested and charged with two breaches and assaulting a police officer and remanded in custody, pending further criminal court proceedings.

As such, on Friday, his barrister told the High Court that they felt unable to continue with the application before Mr Justice Coulson then "struck it out". In other words, he threw out the bid for a gagging order.

It was a double victory – but at a price.

It should not be underestimated how much it costs to defend such an action.

Phone calls, letters, documents, witness statements, hiring a barrister, briefing a barrister, paying for their travel to court and overnight stay all adds up to a bill running into several thousands of pounds. Any business struggles to absorb such unscheduled costs, but particularly in this climate.

But, in what I would consider to be a moral disgrace – and a major flaw of our legal system, Allen had been granted legal aid to fight for his anonymity, claiming it was a breach of his human rights. Yes, those words cropping up again.

Was it not a breach of the human rights of women in Grimsby not to know that he was living here?

And in what can only be considered a double disgrace, at one stage Allen also had his legal aid extended to cover a QC – Queen's Counsel – when it was suggested the Telegraph had been in contempt of court.

We could never have afforded a QC, so was it fair that he had access to the most senior of legal expertise out of the public purse?

That access to a QC was withdrawn before Friday as a result of the situation, but nevertheless, the judge, ordering that Allen pay our costs, did so on the basis that he would have to win the lottery in the future to do so.

As it happened, and even though it cost us dear, I left the High Court on Friday having felt like we had won the lottery – a legal lottery where common sense prevailed.

It's pretty much worthless now that the situation has changed, but being slapped on the back by a court reporter from the Yorkshire Post, who had heard about the proceedings, and thanked us for "fighting it for all journalists" made me feel proud that we had dug our heels in all those months ago, determined to fight an injustice against freedom of speech on a matter of important public interest.