Decision of the Complaints Committee 01976-14 Turner v Surrey Comet
1. Richard Turner complained to the Independent Press
Standards Organisation that the Surrey Comet had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy)
of the Editors’ Code of Practice, in an article headlined “Serial killer Levi
Bellfield befriended Sarah Payne’s dad in Walton pub, mother reveals”,
published in print and online on 3 November 2014.
2. The complainant is the brother of Levi Bellfield, who
has been convicted of the murders of three young women and the attempted murder
of a fourth woman. The article was based on a report in a national newspaper,
and stated that Mr Bellfield had befriended Michael Payne, the father of
murdered school girl Sarah Payne, during “weekly drinking sessions” at a pub in
Walton, before Mr Bellfield’s arrest for the murders. It quoted Mr Payne’s
brother describing Mr Bellfield as “sick” and claimed that he had “boasted”
about the alleged friendship. It also reported that when police searched Mr
Bellfield’s home after his arrest in 2004, they found newspaper cuttings about
Sarah Payne’s murder.
3. The complainant said that his brother had never been a
neighbour of Michael Payne; he had not met or socialised with him. His brother
had moved out of his flat in Walton in March 2002, and had never visited the
pub in question; further, Michael Payne had not moved into the street until
2004. By that time, the complainant’s brother was living in West Drayton, over
ten miles away.
4. The complainant also raised concerns about a number of
other points. His brother had been convicted of three murders, not four. No
newspaper cuttings had been found at the Walton flat, as the article suggested,
and no cuttings had been found at either location relating to Sarah Payne. Two cuttings had been found in a search of
the West Drayton home: a story about car clamping and a story about Amelie
Delagrange, one of his victims. In support of his position, the complainant
provided a copy of a list of material recovered from the West Drayton home,
which recorded two newspaper cuttings, along with an account by a police officer
who had been present at the search. The officer said that one of the cuttings
had been seized because it included a small article regarding the murder of Ms
Delagrange. Beyond that, the officer said, “no other papers to the best of my
knowledge were seized from the address during the period of the search. That is
not to say that there were no other newspapers there. I could not say either
way in respect of that request.”
5. The newspaper said that the story had been reported as
the accounts of Mr Payne’s family, as recounted in another newspaper. The pub
had been Mr Payne’s local, and Levi Bellfield had been one of its well-known
regular customers. It maintained that it was feasible that Mr Bellfield had
continued to drink at his former local after leaving the immediate area, and
that he had befriended Mr Payne at this time. The newspaper amended the online
article to make clear that police had found the newspaper cuttings at the West
Drayton property and offered to make clear that the cuttings related to Amelie
Delagrange, rather than Sarah Payne.
6. The complainant said the newspaper had relied on pub
gossip. An amendment to the online article was not sufficient; a correction
should also be published in print.
Relevant Code Provisions
7. Clause 1 Accuracy
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate,
misleading or distorted information, including pictures.
ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or
distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence,
and - where appropriate - an apology published. In cases involving the
Regulator, prominence should be agreed with the Regulator in advance.
iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must
distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
Findings of the Committee
8. Levi Bellfield and Michael Payne had evidently not
lived in Walton at the same time, and the Committee noted the complainant’s
position that this undermined the basis of the article. However, the article
was clearly based on the detailed recollections of Mr Payne’s family, including
regarding his reaction on learning of Mr Bellfield’s convictions. The
publication had been entitled to report their account, and the re-publication
of the family’s claims, in this context, did not constitute a breach of Clause
1.
9. The Committee noted that the article had not made a
specific claim that the complainant’s brother and Mr Payne had been neighbours;
it said that Mr Bellfield had “gravitated toward [Mr Payne] in the Ashley Park
pub, during weekly drinking sessions”. While Mr Bellfield and Mr Payne had
lived on the street at different times, the Committee had not been provided with
grounds to establish that Mr Payne and Mr Bellfield had not met in this
context, as was the clear account of the Payne family. No correction was
required.
10. The witness statement by the police officer who
attended the search acknowledged that he could not confirm that no other
cuttings had been present in Mr Bellfield’s West Drayton home at the time of
the search. The Committee did not consider that there were grounds to establish
an inaccuracy on this point.
11. A murder represents an appalling loss of life, and as
such the Committee expressed concern about the careless inaccuracy regarding
the nature of Mr Bellfield’s convictions. Nonetheless, the Committee concluded
that, under the terms of the Code, a correction was not required to inform readers
that Mr Bellfield had been convicted of three murders and one attempted murder,
rather than four murders; they would not be significantly misled as to the
gravity of his crimes.
Conclusions
12. The complaint was not upheld.
Remedial Action Required
N/A
Date complaint received: 26/11/2014
Date decision issued: 27/03/2015