· Decision of the Complaints Committee 04424-15 A woman v Daily Record
Summary of
complaint
1. A woman complained to the Independent Press Standards
Organisation that the Daily Record had breached Clause 3 (Privacy) and Clause
14 (Confidential sources) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article
headlined “Blind 7/7 bombings survivor reveals how she was forced to flee Scotland
over stalking terror”, published on 7 July 2015.
2. The article was an interview with the complainant
which was published on the anniversary of the 7 July 2005 bombings. It reported
that she had left London following the attacks, and had now had to move again
as she had been the victim of stalking.
3. The story had initially been published in another
newspaper; that article was the subject of a separate complaint to IPSO. The
complainant said that, prior to publication of the initial article, she had
been contacted by a freelance journalist, a man with whom she had previously
worked, who wanted to interview her; they arranged a telephone call. The
complainant said that during the call they discussed her experiences of the
bombings; the fact that she was being stalked and had had to move home a number
of times; and her career. She said that she had asked that no details relating
to her being stalked be published; those details were “between them”. The
complainant said that she had also asked that her current location not be
revealed, in order to protect her safety; this omission had been agreed by the
journalist.
4. About an hour after the interview the journalist rang
the complainant to ask if she had reported the stalking matter to the police; she
said that she told him during this conversation that the details relating to
her stalking were private. Five hours later she emailed the journalist to say
that she had been thinking about the conversation and was concerned about the
inclusion in the article of any reference to her being stalked. The journalist
replied saying that the story had been written and submitted to publications,
and it included that the reason why the complainant had moved was that she was
being stalked. He said that his understanding was that the complainant had
requested that nothing in the article reveal where she was living now, and he
had ensured that that was the case. The complainant acknowledged in
correspondence with IPSO that it was clear from the journalist’s recollection
of the conversation that he had not heard her request. The journalist told her
that it was too late to remove the story from the next day’s newspaper.
5. The newspaper said that it had not received the story
from the freelance journalist the complainant had spoken to, but had followed
up a version which had appeared in a different newspaper. As the complainant
had been quoted in the article the newspaper assumed that she had co-operated
with it. It noted that the article had not identified the complainant’s current
place of residence, but said that if it had known that the complainant had not
wanted information about her being stalked to be included in the article, it
would have omitted it. It said that it did not believe that the fact that the
complainant was being stalked was private information. It said that the
complainant had spoken about the fact that she was being stalked during a
speech at a conference in 2015, as she called for unions to increase measures
to protect women in the entertainment industry. An article about that speech
had been published on the website of a specialist newspaper. However, in light
of the concerns raised by the complainant, the newspaper apologised to her;
removed the article from its website; and said that it was examining its
protocols around following up stories from other newspapers to try and avoid a
similar situation occurring again.
Relevant Code Provisions
6. Clause 3 (Privacy)
i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private
and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital
communications.
ii) Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into
any individual’s private life without consent. Account will be taken of the
complainant’s own public disclosures of information.
Clause 14 (Confidential sources)
Journalists have a moral obligation to protect
confidential sources of information.
The public interest
4. The Regulator will consider the extent to which
material is already in the public domain, or will become so.
Findings of the Committee
7. The Committee understood that the complainant was in a
vulnerable position, and that she was concerned for her safety.
8. The Committee had already established, separately,
that the initial article in the other newspaper did not raise a breach of the
Editors’ Code. That decision informed its consideration of the complaint
against the Daily Record.
9. The initial conversation had been clearly
distinguished as an interview for publication, and the journalist was someone
with whom she had previously worked. The Committee noted the complainant’s
acceptance that the journalist had not acknowledged her request, and it was
clear that there had been no specific agreement to exclude details about the
stalking from the article. In addition, the information was already in the
public domain following the complainant’s conference speech. The article under
complaint had not given any indication of the complainant’s current place of
residence, and so the Committee did not consider that the newspaper’s actions
had compromised the complainant’s safety. The Committee found that the article
did not represent an unjustified intrusion into the complainant’s private life;
the complaint under Clause 3 was not upheld.
10. There was no suggestion that an agreement had been
made that the complainant be treated as a confidential source; there was no
breach of Clause 14.
Conclusions
11. The complaint was not upheld.
Remedial Action Required
N/A
Date complaint received: 13/07/2015
Date decision issued: 08/09/2015