Attorney general warns on suspected breach of injunction

Special report: The Bulger case

Colin Blackstock
guardian.co.uk, Saturday June 23 2001 11.20 BST

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, launched an investigation last night into an apparent breach of the injunction prohibiting the publishing of details relating to the whereabouts of the killers of James Bulger.

The details appeared in some editions of the Manchester Evening News and also on the paper's website.

A statement released by the attorney general's office said: "The attention of the attorney general has been drawn to an article in today's Manchester Evening News, which appears to be in breach of the injunction granted by the high court on January 8 2001, as it contains information which might lead to the identification of the present whereabouts of John Venables and Robert Thompson.

"The attorney general is considering as a matter of urgency whether it would be appropriate to issue proceedings for contempt in the light of this.

"He will regard any breach of this injunction as a very serious matter."

Last night a spokesman for the MEN said: "We would never knowingly breach an injunction and will be contacting the attorney general's office at the earliest opportunity."

Editors who originally challenged the injunction said they had no intention of revealing the new identities of Venables and Thompson, but were determined to fight the ruling on principle.

But Neil Wallis, the editor of the People, told the Guardian in January. "Imagine if my paper learned that one of these youths had become a care assistant in a primary school or nursery. Why shouldn't I have the right to publish that?"

A spokeswoman for the News of the World said yesterday that it "would not aggressively pursue them, however we would note and log any information that came to us".

Asked whether the paper would publish information received from a member of the public about the two boys, she said: "Clearly that depends on the nature of the information."