Sex offender media ban defended

The council has defended taking action at the High Court

Scottish Borders Council has defended its decision to spend £12,000 to stop the publication of the whereabouts of a recently released sex offender.

Alexander Maben was jailed for his part in the torture and rape of a woman with learning difficulties in 2002.

Social work director Andrew Lowe said the legal action had been taken with the interests of the community in mind.

Sunday Mail editor Allan Rennie criticised the move by the council as "tantamount to censorship".

Mr Lowe said the authority had a "very, very difficult job" with its statutory duty to manage sex offenders once they were released.

I don't feel comfortable with the spin that has been put on it by some newspapers who seem to suggest we were only about protecting the rights of the offender Andrew Lowe Social work director

"The effort that was made on Saturday was to ensure the anonymity of the offender so that we could do that job - with our partners in the police - as closely and as effectively as we could," he said.

Mr Lowe stressed that the interests of the people of the Borders had been central to the court action.

"What Scottish Borders Council is about is ensuring that, through the provision of a discrete and safe supervision, the effect of these people is minimised on the community," he said.

"It is the community we are thinking about and it is our power to discharge our duties in a safe way that was what we were trying to do."

Borders council - despite what they say - wanted us not to publish a word about this man Allan Rennie Sunday Mail editor

He rejected any suggestion that the authority had put an offender's rights before community concerns.

"I don't feel comfortable with the spin that has been put on it by some newspapers who seem to suggest we were only about protecting the rights of the offender," he said.

The Sunday Mail's editor disputed the authority's claims.

"Borders council - despite what they say - wanted us not to publish a word about this man," said Mr Rennie.

"They asked us quite specifically not to publish the article.

"I don't understand how this serves the public interest."

He said his newspaper would happily have removed the address from the article.

However, he claimed the action had backfired on the authority as the story had ended up on the front page in its Borders edition.

"It is the biggest PR own goal I have ever seen in 27 years," he said.