WHAT’S in a name? What’s in a face? Until Friday afternoon, the killer of Alesha MacPhail was as nameless and shapeless as the picture of the six-year-old was vivid and bright.

An impish grin in a plastic fireman’s hat, with her shock of blonde hair, Alesha was a picture-perfect wee girl. The teenage boy accused of her murder, by contrast, could only be perceived in very vague outline, through the terrible details of this case. How could he escape identification?

The technical answer is: Section 47 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. This provision imposes reporting restrictions in proceedings involving children. And legally speaking, the murderer of Alesha MacPhail is still a child. Holyrood’s 2014 Victims and Witnesses Act brought Scots law into line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 1 of the Convention lays it out: “A child means every human being below the age of 18 years.”

In criminal prosecutions, this means media outfits cannot name, publish pictures, or provide personal details “calculated to lead to the identification” of anyone under 18 years of age involved in the case. Breach of these orders is a criminal offence.

Reporting restrictions represent a major restriction to free expression. They are the exception – not the rule. This is recognised in the 1995 Act. The court has the power to dispense with these restrictions “if it is satisfied that it is in the public interest so to do”.

READ MORE: Horror and Hope: Bute in the aftermath of Alesha MacPhail murder

In petitioning Lord Matthews to lift the reporting restrictions on Friday, the media made a series of cogent arguments, weighing in favour of disclosing his identity.

Firstly, the restrictions on the 1995 Act apply only to media and broadcasters.

On social media, in the community, and in the penal environment Campbell will be confined to, they argued , his identity and his crime were well-known. The restrictions served no ongoing purpose, they argued.

The defence, by contrast, submitted that full disclosure put this young man at greater risk of reprisals. They alluded to underlying mental health problems. Taking these submissions into account, Lord Matthews held the balance of public interest weighed against Aaron Campbell. His name and picture could be published.

I teach criminal law by day. Every year, I send my students up to visit the High Court, and every year, some come back a little dazed by an encounter. As they pass the High Court’s gloomy portals, they’re all aware – at least in the abstract sense – what they’re likely to experience.

But putting a human face on a homicide case changes how you react. It is somehow different to sit within metres of someone accused of the worst offences imaginable – and to discover they aren’t some obvious monster, but are often a ordinary-looking human specimen, very much resembling yourself.

When Lord Matthews rolled back the reporting restrictions protecting Aaron Campbell’s identity, we were confronted by the face of ... just another teenager.

Because young people put so much of themselves in the public domain, there inevitably follows the media trawl of the Instagram accounts and old YouTube videos.

When you know someone has committed a terrible crime, there is a tendency to read their entire online life before in the light of last, worst act. There is clearly a dark appetite for this kind of content – but I can’t help but wonder what people are looking for.

Perhaps it is the old superstition that we can see in someone’s face – or hear in their voice – the wrongness which culminated in the tragic death of this six-year-old. But we can’t. Looking out at us, from the YouTube clips and the police mugshot is ... just another teenage boy. Perhaps that’s the most unsettling thing of all.