A WOMAN'S conviction for planning to deal cocaine, allegations of cheating at an Oxford college and a £1.1m pay-out for a former high-flying executive are the latest stories erased from Google's search results.

In the summer the European Court of Justice made a ruling that Google and other search engines would have to remove entries from their search results I f the information was claimed to be out of date or no longer relevant.

The ruling was immediately condemned as being open to abuse by criminals and the powerful who, it was claimed, would try to use it to re-write history and prevent the public learning about convictions, scandals or embarrassing incidents already in the public domain.

It was labelled the Right to be Forgotten but Oxford Mail and Oxford Times group editor Simon O'Neill said it was really "the right to censorship".

However the ruling only applies to Internet search companies, such as Google, and the results they display in Europe. It cannot be used to order media companies to remove stories from their websites.

Within weeks a man who had failed to use the Press Complaints Commission to have our story about his shoplifting conviction had successfully forced Google to remove the listing of the article.

The Oxford Mail and Oxford Times have been informed three more stories have been removed from Google's listings. It is not known who has applied to Google over these stories.

The first is a story from November 2009 about the conviction for possession of cocaine with intent to supply of Kayleigh Brackett, then aged 20 and living in Thistle Drive in Oxford. She was given a community sentence and you can read the original story here.

Also hidden from Google's searches is a 2007 story about former high-earning financial executive Ingrid Van Wees, 40, receiving £1.1m damages in her High Court claim for road crash injuries which destroyed her intellectual abilities and wrecked her career.

Miss Van Wees, who used to live in Walton Crescent, Oxford, was said to have an IQ in the "very superior range" before she was injured when a scooter on which she was riding pillion collided with a car in Farringdon Street, central London, on May 22, 2000. Again, the full story can be read here.

Mr O'Neill said: "Our concern is the misuse of this ruling to effectively erase from history legitimate and lawful information from public view.

"Whilst we do not know who has requested that this information is removed from Google's searches, the question for all our readers has to be: why would someone try to hide these stories from public view?

"In the majority of cases it is to prevent the public learning legitimate information about the people or organisations in these stories."

Lastly was our 1998 story about students at Oxford Business College facing the prospect of resitting their summer exams after a probe into "irregularities".

The Institute of Commercial Management held an investigation into the college, in King Edward Street, after being contacted by a tutor.

Stanley Hunter, the college's principal, said: "I refute the allegations that have been made. There is no substance in them."

You can read the full story here. Mr Hunter, who is no longer connected to the college, has confirmed he applied to Google to have the story removed because there was a follow-up piece.

The college appealed the decision and was cleared over the allegations. In the story Mr Hunter said the allegations were untrue. He added: "As it turned out no student at the college has had to retake a single examination."

You can read that full follow-up story about the college's successful appeal here.

The European Court of Justice's ruling can be easily got around by doing all your searches on google.com (available as an option in the bottom right of your screen) rather than google.co.uk. The .com address is the American site and is not under the ECJ jurisdiction.