Sex killer Ken Callaghan yesterday joined a list of some of the world’s most notorious killers when he won a permanent ban against his photograph being published.

The High Court in Belfast yesterday granted an injunction preventing Independent News and Media — which owns Sunday Life and the Belfast Telegraph — from printing unpixelated photographs of the then 39-year-old killer, taken while he was out of jail on a pre-release scheme.

In a landmark Press freedom case, the Prison Service was also granted an order preventing Sunday Life and, as a result, all media, from publishing photographs of “any serving prisoner” who is or has been assessed at the Prisoner Assessment Unit on Belfast’s Crumlin Road, which runs the pre-release scheme, without giving them two days’ notice so they have the option of seeking an injunction.

Callaghan (41) was jailed in 1988 for murdering 22-year-old Carol Gouldie at her Colvil Street home in east Belfast, and raping her as she lay dead or dying.

The pervert had broken into her home and lay in wait for his innocent victim, a talented musician who worked in a solicitor’s office, to come home before attacking her.

Just hours later, callous Callaghan took his girlfriend to the cinema.

Carol’s partly clothed body was discovered by a lodger two days later. Callaghan only admitted his crime 10 months after the murder — on the morning his trial was due to start.

His life sentence tariff expired last October and he is now eligible for release on licence.

Currently, he remains on the pre-release scheme which allows him to spend his days in the community.

The family of his victim — who had never spoken to the media — broke their silence 20 years on to back Sunday Life’s Your Right To Know campaign, which demanded readers be given the right to know the identities of notorious killers and rapists walking our streets unsupervised.

Carol's sisters Jill and Sharon and her brother Stuart joined us in court as we challenged an interim injunction banning Callaghan’s photograph and were at the High Court yesterday as that injunction was made permanent.

The small list of those who have received such a lifetime ban include:

• Maxine Carr, who provided a false alibi for child killer Ian Huntley when police were investigating the murders of Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

• Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the schoolboy killers of Liverpool toddler James Bulger in 1993

• Mary Bell who, at the age of 11, killed two young boys in 1968.

In a statement, the family of Carol Gouldie said last night they believed the courts had “found in favour of the wrongdoer”.

They said: “We are of course disappointed at today's decision as our concern in this case has been about protecting the innocent.

“Once again the courts have found in favour of the wrongdoer and the wider safety concerns of the law abiding public have been cast aside.

“This sends out a very disturbing message to the society of Northern Ireland, which is to be given a lower level of safety than the rest of the UK.”

Sunday Life editor Jim Flanagan said: “I'm deeply disappointed with the verdict and we will be considering our options in the coming days. The ban on publishing any photographs of inmates on a pre-release scheme without giving two days’ notice is extremely wide-ranging and could impede journalists' legitimate investigation of crime.”

Callaghan remains on the pre-release scheme and it will be up to the Parole Commissioners to ultimately decide when to release him on licence.

He was first granted a temporary injunction last February. That was challenged in the High Court at a trial last September when Sunday Life argued that publication of his picture would allow the public to avoid the convicted killer after his release.

Yesterday, however, Mr Justice Stephens ordered a permanent ban against the publication of Callaghan’s photograph or any information identifying his addresses, workplace or any location he frequents when released from prison.

Mr Justice Stephens praised Sunday Life for its stance against criminals, but accused the newspaper of trying to introduce its own Megan’s Law in Northern Ireland. Megan’s Law in the US identifies sex offenders living in communities with their addresses and photographs available on the Internet.

During its court case, Sunday Life said it would not publish the address of Callaghan’s home where he has spent periods of pre-release with his parents.

The judge said: “The defendant is to be commended in relation to its stance against criminals and its desire to protect the public.”

However, he criticised Sunday Life, saying it “did not provide any balance” in explaining how the pre-release scheme worked and risk assessments made of Callaghan. On February 5 2008, Sunday Life sent a list of questions to the Prison Service press office asking such questions. That email has never received a response.

While he ruled that he believed Callaghan posed a “low to medium” risk of reoffending, the judge clearly stated “there has been no particular threat” to Callaghan from the public. He also disputed Callaghan’s legal team’s argument that there would be a “real and immediate risk to life” by publication of an unpixelated photograph of the killer.

However, he said he believes there would be “disruption” to his home and private life through “acts of violence” if his precise whereabouts was made known through publication of unpixelated photographs.

As a result he upheld the ban on Callaghan’s photograph being shown and ruled that his address, or that of his parents or siblings cannot be published, even by town or city.

The ban imposed at Belfast High Court also means the entire media in Northern Ireland cannot publish any unpixelated photographs of any serving prisoner who “is” or “has been” a prisoner at the Prisoner Assessment Unit (PAU) on Belfast’s Crumlin Road, without giving the Prison Service 48 hours’ notice. This would allow the prisoners concerned to seek their own injunctions banning photographs of them.

During the High Court trial in September, Callaghan was exposed as a serial liar who tried to hide his sordid past from a girlfriend.

Prison officials admitted in the dock that Callaghan remains a risk to the public and fear he could stalk women again. One prison governor said the killer’s contacts with women are “a significant risk issue”.

The court heard that since being moved into the PAU in September 2007, Callaghan has had relationships with two women — named as Miss A and Miss B.

He was suspended from day release for a fortnight for covering up contacts with Miss A and was ordered last February to tell Miss B about his sordid past by prison authorities after Sunday Life had photographed him.

It emerged later that the serial liar did not give Miss B the gruesome details until the end of April — more than four months after they first met. They later split because her children “didn’t want her anywhere near him”.

He was removed temporarily from the pre-release scheme in March for breaching an order not have any further face to face contact with Miss B. However, in August he was transferred back to the PAU.

At no stage during the Sunday Life injunction challenge did Callaghan ever show up to court.

However it is believed he was informed of the verdict yesterday.

The Independent News and Media legal team is currently considering the implications of the judgement.

Does he really deserve privacy?

by media law expert Walter Greenwood

To many people Mr Justice Stephens’ ban on publication of photographs and information as to the whereabouts of the sex killer Kenneth Callaghan will seem a startling restriction on freedom of expression.

After all, Callaghan is already known to the public at large through the concern about his revolting crime.

The judge had to take into account two criteria in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). On the one hand the convention requires the courts to give due regard to freedom of expression and the right to impart information subject to conditions such as the rights of others. But the courts are also required to consider another clause in ECHR — the right of everyone to respect for his private and family life and his home. Did Callaghan deserve such privacy?

The case is not one where the original offence was committed by a child seeking to start a fresh life as an adult.

Callaghan is man of 41 and many people will feel they ought to know that he is living in their midst, and what he looks like, lest they feel, rightly or wrongly, that he might pose a danger to the public at large.

There are precedents however. In the past courts in England have imposed a ban on the new identity not only of Thompson and Venables the Liverpool killers of the child James Bulger. A similar injunction was granted to protect Maxine Carr, former girlfriend of Ian Huntley, the Soham child killer, on the grounds that she had a right to privacy, a concept wide enough, it was held, to include a person’s physical and psychological integrity.

Mr Justice Stephens, while acknowledging Sunday Life’s desire to protect the public, held that there could be disruption to Callaghan’s home, family life and connections.

How much should this influence the court? Back in 1997 Lord Justice McCollum reached a different conclusion in ruling against a magistrates’ court ban on naming a sex charge defendant. He said in the Queen’s Bench Division in Belfast that the possibility of an attack on the defendant by ill-intentioned persons was purely speculative and should not influence the court — a ruling in favour of freedom of expression.