I don't recall seeing square brackets in a url before...


without markup
http://www.npsa.nhs.uk/site/media/documents/2971_2604_PSBulletin_May07_[1].pdf

with markup
[url=http://www.npsa.nhs.uk/site/media/documents/2971_2604_PSBulletin_May07_[1].pdf]test link[/url]

Hmmm - it breaks both versions.
Why put square brackets in a url?

Any suggestions on how to get around this?
(Other than to wrap it in code tags.)

Not really, the forum script looks for the brackets to tell it when ubbcode is being used. If it's not the correct ubbcode order it breaks the link. The best solution would be to re-name the file without the brackets and try again, or just put code tags around it, but that would break any auto-linking to it you might want.

Unfortunately, it's not my link.

I did end up wrapping it in code tags.

brackets aren't valid in the URL, their ascii varient are; simply replace:
[ with %5B
] with %5D

Thus:
test link

Or
http://www.npsa.nhs.uk/site/media/documents/2971_2604_PSBulletin_May07_%5B1%5D.pdf