Published: Wednesday, 1st July, 2009 1:17pm

How the 'News' refused to be gagged

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JUST over a year ago Provost Bobby Rae contacted me to highlight that he had written to the Chief Constable about a shocking trail of criminal activity being pursued by two young residents of Merton House, a home run by the Quarriers charity in Largs.

We then spoke to victims who, in one terrifying incident, had been threatened with murder by one of the "children."

The police confirmed the trail of destruction which included fire-raising with petrol, assault with a brick, and repeated vandalism to cars. A neighbour of the children"s home told us they were "under siege" with local police telling them the tearaways were protected by legislation.

The man who was Chief Inspector in Largs last year, Jim Seenan, commented:

'I know the two boys concerned....it"s a nightmare.'

As this state of affairs had been brought to our attention we set out to speak to as many people involved as possible. Local victims who identified themselves to us were fearful of having their names published, particularly in light of the murder threat.

Quarriers chief executive Phil Robinson stated that they did not condone the alleged behaviour but were acting to rectify the situation.

He then informed us that 'identifying the individuals or their place of residence' might seriously risk their 'personal safety.'

What about the safety of Largs residents, we said?

The day before we published the front page story a legal letter arrived from Quarriers threatening action if we identified their premises.

The whole thrust of the story - overwhelmingly in the public interest - was that the alleged criminals resided in Merton House. We published.

A month or so later two detectives arrived at the newspaper to say that under "Prohibition of publication of proceedings at children"s hearings" myself and reporter David Walker were being reported to the Procurator Fiscal.

Bizarrely, the lead detective admitted that he had never heard of the legislation but he had read up on it the night before!

As our newspaper legal expert has confirmed this law under the 1968 Social Work (Scotland_ Act) simply did not apply to our story.

'It was not proceedings. End of story' he stated.

As you can imagine having a threatened prosecution hanging over you is no joke, so a year later I wrote to the Fiscal. Last week he replied that no action was being taken.

In my view, what we experienced was a national organisation trying to intimidate a local newspaper out of running a story which criticised them.

I am pleased to say that the story succeeded in the culprits being removed from Largs and peace being restored in the community.