Sorting a locked table on a protected sheet with VBA

Hi all,

I have trawled through many threads trying to find a solution to my problem with no luck. There seems to be a lot of people with the same problem.
I am using excel 2011.

How can I sort a table on a protected sheet?

1. I navigate to Tools > Protection > Protect Sheet...
2. I select the boxes for (Select locked cells, Select unlocked cells, Sort, Filter)
3. I try to sort by ascending or descending to be faced with "The cell or chart you are trying to change is protected and therefore read-only."
4. I notice that I can still filter without any problems.
5. This happens whether the cells that I am trying to sort are locked or not.

I am baffled by this and if need be I am open to VBA.

It is necessary to have the sheet protected, the cells locked and the sort function working.

Thank you for your help