sgtpepperband said:
"Ahem"...
Under
Section 4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, the Crown Court has power in certain restricted circumstances to order that publication of reports of part or all of the proceedings held in open court be postponed for so long as necessary, where such a postponement is necessary for avoiding a substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in those or other proceedings - for example, if the person is going to be tried on other matters. I don't think that reporting restriction would be imposed because he has not been sentenced
(as is the case here; he has entered a plea and been found guilty, but no sentence has been awarded).
Typically that applies not to the naming of the person but to revealing details of the case; if there's a group of people on trial (e.g. some of the terror cases) and they're tried separately, or one pleads guilty and the rest plead not guilty. There'll be an order in place forbidding publication until the very last trial is over.
I've never been in court where protection of the accused's identity has been an issue - only the victim and witnesses. There are instances whereby the accused
cannot be named, normally because there's a child involved (such as the Baby P case - not to protect Baby P, but his siblings...) It's all
very complicated. It's a good 8 or 9 years since I covered court regular so things may have changed. What I did often find was defence lawyers asking for a Section 39 order (as it was called then) to 'protect' the child when all it ended up doing was protect the bloody accused.
It might be worth asking the Herald or Plymouth Mags to find out why the accused in this case is anonymous. I think the paper might have kicked up a fuss had it been purely to protect the accused... The other possibility is that he's under 18...
And anyway, even though the paper hasn't named him, all you need to do is ask for the court listings of the day and you'll find his name, age, address and the rest listed (if they still do court lists). What you can't do is publish it here or anywhere else.