A SECRET police blogger has been revealed as a Lancashire detective following a high court ruling that stripped away his anonymity.

Detective Constable Richard Horton, based in Lancashire Police's Eastern division, had tried to keep his identity secret as he uploaded diary entries on to his critically acclaimed NightJack blog.

Following a national newspaper investigation into who was writing the blogs, Mr Horton was outed as the author and attempted to take out an injunction against the Times newspaper to stop it printing his name.

But in a landmark High Court case this week a judge rules that anonymous bloggers cannot use the court process to keep their identity a secret.

Lancashire Police have issued Mr Horton with a written warning.

Mr Horton's blogs, which were awarded the orwell Prize for political writing, offered a behind-the-scenes look at front-line policing and advised those under police investigation to “complain about every officer... show no respect to the legal system or anybody working in it”.

The Times said that some blog entries contained confidential details of cases being worked on by Mr Horton.

People and locations were changed to offer a thin veil of anonymity but some, including those relating to child sex offences, could be traced back to genuine prosecutions, the paper said.

Mr Horton has now deleted all his blog entries.

A police spokesperson said: “The commentary in the blog is indeed the work of a serving Lancashire detective and clearly the views and opinions expressed are those of the author himself and not those of the wider Constabulary.

“We have conducted a full internal investigation and the officer accepts that parts of his public commentary have fallen short of the standards of professional behaviour we expect of our police officers.

“He has been spoken to regarding his professional behaviour and, in line with disciplinary procedures, has been issued with a written warning.”