Decision
of the Complaints Committee – 07363-21 A man v metro.co.uk
Summary
of Complaint
1. A man complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that
metro.co.uk breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an
article headlined “Headteacher ‘attacked 18 times by pupil after pleas to
council for help’”, published on 29 June 2021.
2. The
online article reported that the head teacher was “reportedly ‘headbutted,
throttled with a scarf and threatened with a screwdriver’” by a pupil. It
stated that the “series of assaults” were “said to have started” in 2018, with
the police called to a number of these incidents, and which had continued until
the child was “finally expelled” from the school. It stated that the head
teacher, who was “5ft 2in, was even reportedly attacked in front of her husband
[…], who worked part-time at the school” and included the comments he had
previously made to a separate publication. It said that the local authority was
under pressure to explain why it did not respond to “repeated warnings and
pleas for help” from school leaders and why a child with complex needs was not
placed in a more suitable environment, following reports by Private Eye and
then The Sunday Times. It added that the council had reportedly “dismissed the
school’s governing body and appointed an interim board” and included the
following statement from the council: “We … will support the return of the head
teacher as appropriate. We believe that the article [in Private Eye] is
misleading and inaccurate.” The article referenced a previous Ofsted report
that had been critical of the area’s handling of children with complex needs.
3. The
complainant, the father of the pupil, said the article was misleading in breach
of Clause 1. It had reported, as fact, that the head teacher was attacked by
his child. He said that the allegations put forward by the head teacher and her
husband were untrue, and the article gave a misleading account of the school’s
handling of his child: attributing blame to the local authority instead of the
school; implying that the “attacks” were unprovoked; and sensationalising
events by including the height of the head teacher. He also expressed concern
that there were key omissions from the article; namely, that his child’s
exclusion was investigated by an Independent Review Panel (IRP) and
subsequently quashed. He also disputed the number of incidents reported in the
headline, adding that this particular figure had not been referenced in any
past or ongoing investigation.
4. In
support of his position, the complainant provided the IRP report and the
findings of a Disability Discrimination Tribunal (DDT) into the matter. He said
that his child’s exclusion had been quashed by the IRP, with the DDT finding
that his child had been discriminated against. He expressed concern that the
article had referenced the child’s initial exclusion without reporting that
this had subsequently been rescinded.
The
publication did not accept a breach of the Editors’ Code. It said that the
article was based upon the reports of two separate publications which were
cited and referred to. It maintained that the article made clear the status of
the allegations made about the conduct of the complainant’s child: these were
claims and presented as such, by the way of the use of inverted commas in the
headline and attributing these claims to the head teacher and her husband in
the text of the article. It made clear that the focus of the article was
criticism levelled at the local authority by the head teacher for its perceived
role in failing to both properly protect staff and ensuring that the child’s
complex needs were met. In this context, the newspaper had contacted the local
authority for its comments prior to publication and included the response it
provided to The Sunday Times. The newspaper noted that the council said it was
unable to comment further due to ongoing associated investigations; it did not
mention or reference the IRP or its outcome, nor was this information publicly
available prior to publication. Following the article’s publication and being
made aware of the complainant’s concerns, the newspaper returned to the council
who confirmed that the child’s exclusion had indeed been quashed. Given these
circumstances, and taking account of the context of the article, the newspaper
did not accept that the omission of the outcome of the IRP rendered the article
inaccurate or misleading. Furthermore, it did not accept that the omission of
the further context provided by the complainant to the incidents in question
rendered the article significantly inaccurate or misleading.
6. Notwithstanding
this, upon receipt of the complaint and in an effort to resolve the matter, the
publication offered the following actions: the disabling of the reader’s
comment facility for the article; the amendment of the article to record that
the child’s exclusion had been quashed; and the opportunity for the complainant
to challenge the allegations put forward by the other parties involved in a
follow-up article.
7. Whilst
the complainant welcomed this offer, he did not consider it sufficient to
resolve his complaint. Therefore, the matter was passed to the Complaints Committee.
Relevant
Code Provisions
Clause 1
(Accuracy)
i) The
Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted
information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.
ii) A
significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected,
promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology
published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the
regulator.
iii) A
fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when
reasonably called for.
iv) The
Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly
between comment, conjecture and fact.
Findings
of the Committee
8. The
Committee recognised the distressing circumstances surrounding this complaint.
It was clear from the material provided by both the complainant and the
publication during the course of IPSO’s investigation that this was a highly
contentious situation which had been the subject of a number of related
investigations and proceedings. The complainant said that the article
sensationalised and misrepresented incidents involving his child and gave a
false picture of the school’s handing of the situation. The Committee was not
in a position to make detailed findings about the causes and responsibility for
the incidents; its function was to determine whether the publication had
breached the Editors’ Code.
9. In
this instance, the article contained serious allegations regarding the conduct
of the child towards the head teacher, including a personal account of the head
teacher’s husband, who had described his experience to another national
publication and expressed concerns over the actions taken by the local
authority. However, the Committee noted that the publication had consistently
presented these allegations as claims throughout the article. It had employed
quotation marks both in the headline and the body of the article to distinguish
the allegations from established fact and had used language such as
“reportedly” and “are said to have” to demonstrate to readers that it was
reporting claims. It had not adopted the claims as fact. As such, there was no
failure to distinguish between comment, conjecture, and fact in reporting these
allegations, so the Committee did not find a breach of Clause 1 (iv). The
Committee also noted that the publication had approached the local authority
for comment prior to publication and in the absence of any further information
had included its rebuttal to the details included in the Private Eye article.
In such circumstances, the Committee found that the publication had taken
sufficient care in reporting the claims made. Furthermore, the Committee did
not conclude that the article gave rise to a misleading impression of the
situation such that a correction was required under the terms of Clause 1(ii),
as it would be understood that the article reported allegations which were the
subject of an ongoing investigation.
10. The
Committee next considered the complainant’s concerns regarding the reference to
his child’s exclusion and the omission of the fact that this had subsequently
been quashed by the IRP. In considering the care taken by the newspaper, the
Committee noted that the IRP report and its findings had not been publicly
available when the article was published, nor had the newspaper been notified
of its outcome by the local authority when it made contact prior to
publication. As such, the absence of reference to this development did not
amount to a failure by the publication to take care not to publish inaccurate
or misleading information. Nor was it a significant inaccuracy, where it was
not in dispute that the child had been excluded. The article did not discuss the
merits of the exclusion and it was framed only as a passing reference as to the
reason why the incidents has stopped; the omission of the IRP’s outcome, which
was not known by the newspaper at the time of publication, did not render the
article inaccurate and misleading.
Nonetheless, in light of the sensitivity of the case, the Committee
welcomed the newspaper’s offer to amend the online article to include this
additional information.
11. The Committee did not find that the other
points identified by the complainant raised a breach of Clause 1. The Committee
noted that the selection of material was a matter of editorial discretion, as
long as the Code was not otherwise breached. In this instance, the inclusion of
the teacher’s height did not render the article misleading; it formed part of
the publication’s report of her experience. Furthermore, the omission of the
context later provided by the complainant to the incidents in question did not
render the article inaccurate or misleading, where the claims made were clearly
presented as allegations, and where it was not in dispute that these
allegations had been made. There was no breach of Clause 1.
Conclusion(s)
12. The
complaint was not upheld.
Remedial
Action Required
13. N/A
Date
complaint received: 06/07/2021
Date
complaint concluded by IPSO: 18/02/2022
Independent
Complaints Reviewer
The complainant complained to the Independent Complaints Reviewer about the process followed by IPSO in handling this complaint. The Independent Complaints Reviewer decided that the process was not flawed and did not uphold the request for review.
Back to ruling listing