Relevant language from the article:
Prosecutor Sarah Counsell added that the police officer in charge of the case was content that he recognised the defendant while she was in the burkha.
Which leads to the question: why is it that we can trust officers to identify evidence, but not trust them to identify persons?
That is kind of curious.
There are plenty of ways this woman could be identified.
At the rate things are going, definative identification is going to be based on DNA.
If the judge simply said "This is Britain, and by our legal traditions, people may not cover their faces in court." That's not discrimination, it applies to all.
But coming up with a stupid identification excuse to justify his decision puts the entire evidentiary process at risk. If I were a British barrister defending, say, a drug dealer, I would use this to argue that the police could not validly say that the drugs in evidence were the same as the package they found on my client.
Interesting.