After a two week legal battle, the Sutton Guardian has won the right to name a pair of youths who carried out an appalling catalogue of serious sexual assaults on young girls over a 15 month period.

Ben Bonsu, 16, of Carshalton and Nathan Walters, 16, of Mitcham Junction, pleaded guilty to a total of 15 charges of serious sexual assault on five girls.

Last Monday Croydon Crown Court heard the boys had groped, bullied, abducted, detained and humiliated the girls, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Both boys attended Stanley Park High School but were expelled when their actions came to light.

Last week the Sutton Guardian challenged a gagging order banning the publication of the naming of the teenagers, and their former school, which was made during their court hearing when they pleaded guilty to all counts of sexual assault. Sutton Council had argued for the gagging order to stay in place after the sentencing, claiming it wanted to protect victims and witnessses. But at a hearing yesterday Judge John Tanzer dismissed their arguments as "a smokescreen" designed to prevent damage to the reputation of the school.

He said: "There is no merit in mincing words, the primary concern was the reputation of the local school and any issue of identification was only added afterwards."

Emails shown to the judge made clear that Stanley Park High, which is due for a £38 million redevelopment scheduled to open in 2010, had exerted considerable pressure on the council to keep its name out of the papers.

But the Sutton Guardian successfully argued that the offences were so grave that the youths should not be granted the cloak of anonymity and that the community had a right to know who they are.

We can now report that Bonsu was sentenced to 18 months and Walters to 12 months detention at a young offenders’ institution.

After sentencing, a relative of one of the defendants, who broke down as he was sentenced, shouted at the judge and had to be removed by security.

One impact statement, read out in court, said: “If I had the chance to speak to [the defendants] I would tell them I’m better than both of them because I would treat people how I would like to be treated.

“I would tell both of them how they had ruined the last two years of my life.”

In sentencing, Judge Tanzer said the boys had left their victims feeling “dirty, humiliated and used’’.

He said: “There is a distinction between childish horseplay and something far more serious.

“You thought you could openly discriminate against them simply because they were female.

“You blame the victims for their own misfortune at your own hands and now seem to find it a hurdle to comprehend that what you have done is very wrong... there is also evidence of an ostensible lack of remorse.’’