Public Interest

I read a story the other day about a Labour councillor who lost a battle for anonymity - after a court hearing in which she was fined £100 by magistrates for being drunk in a supermarket - while in charge of her two-year-old daughter.

Now why this case went all the way to the High Court is beyond me although the councillor involved - Tess Gandy (35) from Suffolk - sought an order that would have prevented the little girl (and herself) from being identified in the media.

But two senior judges ruled against Tess Gandy after two local newspapers - the Eastern Daily Press and the Lowestoft Journal - argued that principles of freedom of speech and open justice should prevail.

Quite right too - and a good thing too because it turns out that Tess Gandy had been cautioned previously for a similar offence - and that her behaviour was putting the wellbeing of the child at risk.

Yet the councillor chose to try and hide behind a completely false argument that he two year-old daughter would suffer - if her mother's behaviour was exposed.

Seems much more likely to me that this young girl is now in a safer position with local people knowing the truth - and being in a position to contact the authorities if anything similar happens again.

So the child's interests and the public interest both triumphed in the end - which is as it should be, if you ask me.