Council's legal case 'wasted public cash'

Giving his reasons for refusing an injunction to stop the BBC using content from the full serious case review (SCR) on the Edlington attack, Mr Justice Tugendhat said yesterday there had been "lamentable omissions" in the authority's legal moves.

It has already been revealed Doncaster Council spent 30,000 to obtain an injunction to stop BBC Newsnight using information from the SCR. The council only intended to publish an executive case summary.

The BBC was due to run a story on Friday, January 15, but was stopped when Doncaster Council obtained a temporary injunction.

At the High Court on Monday, the authority sought to have the publication ban continued, claiming the SCR contained highly confidential information and it would be wrong for the BBC to report on it.

The BBC claimed there were substantial differences between the SCR and the executive summary, describing the latter as "completely inadequate".

The judge lifted the injunction and Newsnight ran the story on Monday night.

Giving his reasons yesterday, Mr Justice Tugendhat said there was "no evidence" the BBC would publish anything "confidential or private". And he added there had been "lamentable omissions" by Doncaster to follow the legal procedures which govern such cases.

"If the proper procedures had been followed, it would have been apparent, before any application was made to the judge, that no injunction was required against the BBC in this case at all."