Decision
of the Complaints Committee – 07567-21 Raminder S Ranger CBE v Daily Mail
Summary
of Complaint
1. Raminder
S Ranger CBE complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that
the Daily Mail breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in
an article headlined “Tory peer, 73, 'called woman a scumbag'”, published on 14
April 2021.
2. The
article reported that “[a] Conservative peer who used his maiden speech to
champion equality for women victimised a female employee by calling her a
‘silly girl’ and a ‘scumbag’, an employment tribunal ruled.” It also reported
that he had told the woman “that she was ‘arguing with men like a proper
quarrelsome woman‘” and that “[i]n an ‘intemperate’ phone call played to a
tribunal, [the complainant] said he would not ‘spare her’.” The article
included two further quotations from the phone call, stating that the
complainant “told her to ‘stop your rubbish’ and said: ‘You have created such a
mess in the entire company.’ […The complainant] also threatened to take the
woman to court, adding: ‘You are such an insolent girl.’” The article ended by
stating that the complainant’s company “strongly denied all claims of
harassment or discrimination involving” him.
3. The
article also appeared online in substantially the same form, under the headline
“Tory peer, 73, 'called woman a scumbag': Lord Ranger victimised employee by
branding her a 'silly girl', tribunal rules”. The URL of the online version of
the article included the following phrase:
“peer-73-called-woman-scumbag-tribunal-rules”
4. The
complainant said that the article, both versions of the headline, and the
online URL were inaccurate in breach of Clause 1, as he disputed that he had
referred to the woman as a “scumbag”. While he accepted that the word “scumbag”
had appeared in the tribunal judgment, the judgment also recorded that the
complainant disputed this translation and preferred the translation “insolent
girl”. He said that the tribunal judgment had made no finding about whether the
word “scumbag” had been used during the phone call, as there was a dispute over
whether this was the correct translation of the phrase which was spoken in
Punjabi. He also said that no such word appeared in the Punjabi language and
that it was “particularly offensive”.
5. The
complainant provided the tribunal judgment, which stated: that the complainant
“describes her in the translator’s words as an absolute scumbag or absolute
garbage. [The complainant] contests that translation. ‘Insolent girl’ is the
translation that he prefers”. As such, the complainant considered the use of
the term “scumbag” within the article, both headlines, and the URL to be
inaccurate, where he said the tribunal ultimately did not find that he had used
the word. He further said that the inaccuracy arising from the use of the word
“scumbag” was significant, where the tribunal had made no finding regarding the
use of the term “scumbag”, and he considered that the tribunal had in fact
preferred his translation of “insolent woman”.
6. The
complainant noted that the term “scumbag” had not appeared in the findings of
the tribunal in relation to the language used during the call. The judgment
said on this point:
Lord
Ranger lost his temper and his composure and insulted the Claimant [...]. Lord
Ranger did victimise the Claimant contrary to section 27(1) of the Equality Act
2010, harass her contrary to section 26(1) of the Act, and directly
discriminate against her contrary to section 13(1) of the Act when, in an
intemperate telephone call [...]he stated
(a) he
would not ‘spare her’;
(b) he
would get the evidence together and see her in Court;
(c) she
was insolent;
(d) she
had no virtues and compared her to a female member of a non-elite peasant
caste;
(e) she
was silly and stupid;
(f) she
was a liar;
(g) she
was an absolute troublemaker;
(h) she
was a horrible girl;
(i) she
had ruined her parents’ honour.
[...]This
is victimisation because she was making a protected act by raising the issue of
sexual harassment. The words and attitude represented by them amounted to
detriments. It was harassment because the words and attitude represented by
them were unwanted conduct relevant to her gender (the complaint of sexual
harassment) and they had an effect of violating the Claimant’s dignity and
creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and offensive
environment for her.
7. Prior
to making a complaint to IPSO and 16 days after the article’s publication, the
complainant’s representative contacted the publication to make it aware of the
complainant’s concerns that Clause 1 may have been breached. The complainant’s
representative requested: the removal of all references to the term “scumbag”
from the article and headline; the publication of a correction and apology, in
terms to be agreed with the complainant’s representative and to be published on
the website; for the publication to contact all third-party websites who
republished the story to request its removal; and for a copy of the
representative’s correspondence relating to the complaint to be place on the
relevant files for future reference.
8. The
publication said it did not accept that it was inaccurate for the article to
report that the complainant had referred to the woman as a “scumbag”. It noted
that its reporters were not Punjabi speakers and it was therefore appropriate
and responsible for it to rely on the translation of the court appointed
translator, who had used the term “scumbag” in their translation of the call;
it did not accept that relying on the translation of the court-appointed
translator rendered the article inaccurate, distorted, or misleading. The
publication disputed that the tribunal had preferred the complainant’s
translation, noting that the tribunal judgment stated only that the complainant
“contest[ed]” the translation, and “preferred” the translation “insolent girl”.
It also said that, to the best of its understanding, the claimant in the
tribunal also considered that the disputed Punjabi word meant “scumbag” and
that was how she interpreted it.
9. The
publication further said that, even if the complainant were to dispute the accuracy
of the translation, it did not accept that it could be significantly inaccurate
to report that he’d referred to the woman as a “scumbag”, where the tribunal
had found that he had: insulted the woman by making discriminatory references
to her gender, ethnicity, and caste; accused her of having ruined her parents’
honour and having “spread her vulgarity all around”; called her an “insolent
girl”, a “horrible girl”, a “troublemaker”, a “stupid girl”, a “quarrelsome
woman” and a “lying woman”; told her to
“shut up”, “stop talking rubbish” and “stop your nonsense”; and victimised,
harassed, and discriminated against the woman.
10. While the publication did not accept that the
article breached the Editors’ Code, it offered – as a gesture of goodwill – to
add the following note to the online article:
Since
first publication of this article, Lord Ranger has contacted us to say that he
denies calling Ms A a ‘scumbag’ during a conversation held in Punjabi. While
this was the word provided to the court by an expert translator, Lord Ranger
says a fairer translation is ‘insolent girl’.
11. The
complainant disputed the publication’s assertion that, should the use of the
term “scumbag” be deemed inaccurate, it could not be shown to be significantly
inaccurate. He said that the phrase “scumbag” was used as a “catch word” in the
article, where it was used in both the headline and the opening paragraph. This
rendered it significant in the context of the article, and therefore a
significant inaccuracy.
12. The
complainant further said that the proposed explanatory note would not resolve
his complaint, where it did not include an apology and did not make clear that
the tribunal did not find that he used the term “scumbag”.
13. The
publication reiterated that it would be content to append an explanatory
wording to the article, making clear the complainant’s position. It also said
that it would be content to publish the following wording in its print edition,
as a gesture of goodwill and should this resolve the complaint:
An
article on April 14 said that an employment tribunal ruled that Tory peer Lord
Ranger victimised a female employee by calling her a ‘scumbag’. While this was
the word provided to the court by an expert translator, Lord Ranger insists
that a fairer translation of the Punjabi word he used is ‘insolent girl’.
14. The complainant said that he would be content
to resolve his complaint on the publication of explanatory notes in both print
and online, should these notes include an apology.
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
15. It
was not in dispute that the phrase “scumbag” had appeared in the court-appointed
translator’s translation of the phone call between the complainant and Ms A and
had been referenced in the tribunal judgment. It was also not in dispute that
the judgment made clear that the complainant disputed the translation, and that
his preferred translation of the original Punjabi was “insolent girl”. The
question was whether newspaper’s references to term were misleading in
circumstances where the tribunal had referred to the fact that the term had
been translated as “scumbag” but had not made a finding of fact that the
translation was correct, nor referred to the term in its findings against the
complainant.
16. The
headline and first line of the article referred to the “scumbag” claim. It
appeared in quotation marks in the headline, which were not attributed; the
first line of the article attributed the claim to the tribunal, stating that a
“tribunal [had] ruled” that the complainant had “victimised a female employee
by calling her […] a ‘scumbag’”. While the tribunal had not found as fact that
the complainant had used the term “scumbag” (and had recorded that the
complainant disputed this translation), it had found that the complainant had
victimised Ms A during a conversation of which the disputed term formed a part,
and had created an “intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and offensive
environment”, in part through the use of the terms that it had found that he
had used. In addition, the article made clear that the complainant “strongly
denied” all allegations against him, which would include the use of the term.
Regardless, the Committee considered that the terms used as listed in paragraph
6 above were in keeping with the characterisation of the Ms. A as a
contemptible or objectionable person, the common understanding of the word
“scumbag”.
17. Given
the tribunal’s findings about the complainant’s actions and the language that
he had used, and the fact that the tribunal judgement did not reject the
translation (albeit it noted the dispute), the Committee did not consider that
the use of the phrase “scumbag” in the article was misleading as to the
findings of the tribunal so as to constitute a failure to take care over the
accuracy of the article or that it was a significantly misleading or inaccurate
claim requiring correction or clarification. There was no breach of Clause 1.
18. The
Committee turned next to the URL of the article. It noted that URLs are often
shortened versions of headlines, and are not intended to be read in isolation.
Read in conjunction with the article itself, the use of the word “scumbag” in
the URL was not inaccurate, misleading, or distorted, and there was no breach
of Clause 1 on this point.
19. While
the Committee did not find that the article had breached the Editors’ Code, it
welcomed the publication’s offer to publish a clarification in both print and
online.
Conclusions
20. The
complaint was not upheld.
Remedial
Action Required
21. N/A
Date
complaint received: 15/07/2021
Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 15/11/2021
Back to ruling listing