A bid by lawyers acting for child killer Mary Bell and her teenage daughter to win them permanent anonymity was today adjourned.

No new date was given for the resumed hearing.

The announcement was given in open court after a morning of discussions behind closed doors in the High Court's Family Division in London.

The judge, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, said that existing injunctions banning publication of the identities of both mother and daughter - who turned 18 in May - will stay in place pending resolution of the proceedings.

She added that she hoped that the majority of the renewed hearing would take place in public.

At an earlier hearing in April, Edward Fitzgerald QC said that mother and daughter would require protection ''both from the risk of attack and for the protection of their private life and the rehabilitation of the mother''.

Dame Elizabeth heard that the daughter had grown into a normal, happy young woman leading a law-abiding life.

It was in December 1968 that Mary Bell, who now lives under a fresh identity, was convicted of manslaughter of two small boys aged four and three.

Then aged 11, she was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure and released on licence in 1980.