Decision
of the Complaints Committee – 10486-22 Worrall v elystandard24.co.uk
Summary
of Complaint
1. David
I. Worrall complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that
elystandard24.co.uk breached Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 2 (Privacy), and
Clause 3 (Harassment) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined
“Villagers react angrily to 51 extra holiday lodges”, published on 15 April
2022.
2. The
article, which appeared online only, reported on plans to build holiday lodges
on the grounds of a golf and country club. The article closed with the
following paragraph: “Nine years ago, the complex became the centre of
controversy after Bespoke Oak Supplies Ltd of Wisbech celebrated completion of
the £2m club house. Managing director David Worrall toasted his company’s
craftsmanship with champagne but the next day it all went horribly wrong. His
firm went bust owing £1.6 million.” The article was accompanied by a photograph
of the complainant holding a glass of champagne.
3. The
complainant said that the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1. He said
that it was inaccurate to state that “the next day it all went horribly wrong.
His firm went bust owing £1.6 million”, both because it was not “his firm” - he
had simply, at one time prior to the company entering liquidation, been its
managing director – and because the company had entered liquidation two months
after the party celebrating the clubhouse’s opening, when he was no longer
associated with the company. He said that the celebration of the clubhouse’s
opening had taken place on 13 of February 2013; he resigned on 18 February
2013; and the proposal for the company to be voluntarily “wound up” – which the
complainant said he was unaware of at the time – was made on 23 April 2013. He
said that these alleged inaccuracies constituted an immense threat to his reputation.
He also said that the photograph which accompanied the article was in breach of
Clause 1. He said that he had not objected to the photograph being taken in
2013, but he did object to its use in the context of an article which he
considered to be inaccurate.
4. The
complainant also said that the article breached Clause 2, as he considered the
article to be a personal attack that intruded into his private and family life,
and that the article’s publication had led to great distress and embarrassment
to his family. He further said that the article breached the Public Interest
section of the Code, and that the terms of Clause 3 had been breached, as he
considered the publication of inaccurate articles constituted persistent
pursuit in breach of this Clause.
5. The
complainant provided an article, published by the Cambs Times’ sister newspaper
in June 2013, which reported on the company having gone “bust”. The 2013
article said: “[M]anaging director David Worrall drank champagne to toast the
completion of a £2million leisure complex but the next day he quit. […] Within
weeks, his firm went bust owing £1.6million.”
6. The
publication first apologised for any offence caused to the complainant by way
of his inclusion in the article. It said that having reviewed the editor’s
inbox, where the original complaint email had been sent, it could not locate
the email but nevertheless wanted to deal promptly with the issues raised by
the complainant. It offered to: remove all references to the complainant and his
former company from the online article, and offer an assurance that the
information would not be republished online or in print; to speak to the
complainant personally to assist in “putting the record straight”; to publish a
clarification online and print, explaining the circumstances of the company’s
dissolution and the complainant’s involvement in the company, along with an
apology if it had misunderstood the complainant’s position. The references to
the complainant were removed from the article prior to IPSO beginning its
investigation.
7. The
publication also proposed to publish the following clarification as a footnote
to the online article:
In a
recent article in the Cambs Times and Wisbech Standard reference was made to
Bespoke Oak Supplies Ltd and its managing director David Worrall. The
photograph was repeated from an article published in 2013 and the completion by
Bespoke Oak Supplies Ltd of a major construction contract. Mr Worrall says his
Wisbech company did not, as stated, go into liquidation the day after the
reception to celebrate completion of the contract but did so later. Mr Worrall
says at the time of the liquidation of Bespoke Oak Supplies, he was no longer a
shareholder and not involved with the company's finances at that stage. We are
happy to make this clarification.
8.
Notwithstanding its apology to the complainant and proposal to publish a
clarification, the publication said that it did not consider that the article
was significantly inaccurate, misleading, or distorted. It said that the
complainant was shown in Companies House documents as being both a director and
managing director of the company. It
also said that Bespoke Oak Supplies had ceased trading and closed its premises
the day after the 13th of February party; it did not therefore accept that it
could be inaccurate to report that “the next day it all went horribly wrong.
His firm went bust owing £1.6 million” when the company had ceased trading
while the complainant was still managing director, and the business had gone
into liquidation shortly after his resignation. It considered that it was
semantics to argue that summarising these events as the article rendered it
significantly inaccurate, misleading, or distorted in breach of Clause 1.
9. To
support its position, the publication provided: a copy of the liquidator’s
report, which showed that on 23 April 2013 the company’s liabilities totalled
£1,643,053.44; a form from the publicly accessible Companies House website
showing that the complainant ceased being a managing director of the company on
18 February 2013; and an article which had been published at the time of the
clubhouse’s opening on 22 February 2013.
10. The
publication did not accept that the use of the photograph of the complainant
represented a possible breach of Clause 1. It said that the photograph was
taken at the party celebrating the clubhouse’s opening and the complainant had
consented to being photographed. It also did not consider the terms of Clause 2
or Clause 3 to be engaged, and noted that the complainant had spoken openly
with the editor of the publication a number of times during previous years –
for instance, inviting him to his home and taking lunch with him to discuss
Bespoke Oak Limited.
11. The
complainant said that the action proposed by the publication was not sufficient
to address his concerns. He wished for the newspaper to publish a front-page
retraction, acknowledging that the article was incorrect and apologising to
him, his family, and his friends.
12. The
complainant further said that it was untrue to state that Bespoke Oak Supplies
had closed and ceased trading on 14 February 2013, and questioned why the
newspaper had published an article about Bespoke Oak Supplies on 22 February
2013 if it had ceased trading over a week earlier.
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.
Clause 2
(Privacy)*
i)
Everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life, home,
physical and mental health, and correspondence, including digital
communications.
ii)
Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private
life without consent. In considering an individual's reasonable expectation of
privacy, account will be taken of the complainant's own public disclosures of
information and the extent to which the material complained about is already in
the public domain or will become so.
iii) It
is unacceptable to photograph individuals, without their consent, in public or
private places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Clause 3
(Harassment)*
i)
Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.
ii) They
must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing
individuals once asked to desist; nor remain on property when asked to leave
and must not follow them. If requested, they must identify themselves and whom
they represent.
iii) Editors must ensure these principles are
observed by those working for them and take care not to use non-compliant
material from other sources.
The
Public Interest (*)
There
may be exceptions to the clauses marked * where they can be demonstrated to be
in the public interest.
(1.) The
public interest includes, but is not confined to:
- Detecting or exposing crime, or the threat of
crime, or serious impropriety.
- Protecting public health or safety.
- Protecting the public from being misled by an
action or statement of an individual or organisation.
- Disclosing a person or organisation’s failure
or likely failure to comply with any obligation to which they are subject.
- Disclosing a miscarriage of justice.
- Raising or contributing to a matter of public
debate, including serious cases of impropriety, unethical conduct or
incompetence concerning the public.
- Disclosing concealment, or likely
concealment, of any of the above.
(2.)
There is a public interest in freedom of expression itself.
(3.) The
regulator will consider the extent to which material is already in the public
domain or will become so.
(4.)
Editors invoking the public interest will need to demonstrate that they
reasonably believed publication - or journalistic activity taken with a view to
publication – would both serve, and be proportionate to, the public interest
and explain how they reached that decision at the time.
(5.) An
exceptional public interest would need to be demonstrated to over-ride the
normally paramount interests of children under 16.
Findings
of the Committee
13.
While there was a dispute over the precise date on which Bespoke Oak Supplies
had ceased trading, which the Committee was not in a position to resolve, both
parties accepted that the company had not entered liquidation until two months
after the party celebrating the opening of the golf club, and that the
complainant had resigned as managing director prior to this. The article
reported that the complainant “toasted his company’s craftsmanship with
champagne but the next day it all went horribly wrong. His firm went bust owing
£1.6 million.”
14. The
Committee considered that the publication had not taken care in reporting that
“Managing Director David Worrall toasted his company’s craftsmanship with
champagne but the next day it all went horribly wrong. His firm went bust […]
“, as this implied that the company had entered liquidation the day after his
attendance at the party, and while the
complainant remained Managing Director.
In fact, the company went into liquidation two months later in April
2013, following the complainant’s resignation as a director on 18 February
2013. Referring to the company as “his” company in the context of reporting on
the company’s liquidation was inaccurate, in circumstances where he was no longer Managing Director at the
time the company was liquidated. The newspaper’s own previous reporting made
clear in 2013 that the timeframe had been longer and that
the company “went bust within weeks” of the party. It had also not taken any
steps, prior to the publication of the article under complaint, to confirm the date on which the company
“went bust”, such as by contacting the complainant, or consulting publicly
available records at Companies House. There was therefore a breach of Clause
1(i).
15. The
Committee considered the inaccuracy to be significant, in circumstances where
misreporting the date on which the company entered into liquidation implied
that the complainant was still involved with the company at the time of its
liquidation, when this was not the case – this inaccuracy had the potential to
impact on the complainant’s reputation. The newspaper was therefore required to
correct the inaccuracy, in line with the terms of Clause 1 (ii).
16. The
Committee turned next to the question of whether the action taken by the
publication was sufficient to address the terms of Clause 1 (ii). The
publication had, in its first communication with the complainant, offered to
publish a clarification explaining the circumstances of the company’s
dissolution and the complainant’s involvement in the company, along with an
apology if it had misunderstood the complainant’s position. It had later
proposed the following wording:
Mr
Worrall says his Wisbech company did not, as stated, go into liquidation the
day after the reception to celebrate completion of the contract but did so
later. Mr Worrall says at the time of the liquidation of Bespoke Oak Supplies,
he was no longer a shareholder and not involved with the company's finances at
that stage.
17. The
Committee considered that the newspaper had offered to publish a correction
promptly – once it became aware of the complainant’s concerns via IPSO – and
had proposed to publish it in a sufficiently prominent position: as a footnote
to the amended online article. However, the wording of the correction only put
the complainant’s position on record, rather than putting the correct factual
position on record. The Committee further noted that the proposed wording
referenced only inaccurate articles in other, sister, publications, rather than
the publication under complaint. There was, therefore, a breach of Clause 1
(ii), where the correction did not make clear that it was a matter of fact that
the complainant had resigned before the company had entered liquidation.
18. The
complainant also considered that the correction should have included an
apology. Notwithstanding that the correction proposed did not put the correct
position of fact on record, the Committee did not consider that an apology
should be required given: the promptness with which the publication had
attempted to address the complainant’s concerns during the IPSO process; that
fact that it had offered to apologise during correspondence with the complainant;
and the fact that it had apologised directly to the complainant for any offence
caused by his inclusion in the article. There was no breach of Clause 1 (ii)
arising from the lack of apology in the proposed remedial action.
19. The Committee also considered that the
publication had demonstrated that it had taken care over the claim that the
company had owed £1.6 million at the time it went “bust”, where the
liquidators’ report showed liabilities totalling £1,643,053.44. There was no
breach of Clause 1 on this point.
20.
While the complainant did not consent to his photograph being used in the
context of the article under complaint, this did not render its use inaccurate,
misleading, or distorted. There was no breach of Clause 1 arising from the
photograph’s use.
21. The complainant’s previous involvement with
Bespoke Oak Limited was a matter of public record, and reporting on this did
not constitute an intrusion into the complainant’s private or family life. The
Committee also did not consider that the publication of the article constituted
persistent pursuit as defined by Clause 3, and noted that persistent pursuit is
generally defined as a journalist following or contacting an individual against
their wishes. There was, therefore, no breach of Clause 2 or Clause 3.
22.
While the complainant had expressed concerns that the publication of the
article was not in the public interest, the Committee noted that it was not
possible for this portion of the Code to be breached. The Public Interest
section of the Code is not a standalone Clause; rather, it allows for
publication to publish stories and engage in activity which would otherwise
engage certain Clauses of the Code, provided there is a proportionate public
interest.
Conclusion(s)
23. The
complaint was partly upheld under Clause 1.
Remedial
Action Required
24.
Having upheld a breach of Clause 1, the Committee considered what remedial
action should be required. In circumstances where the Committee establishes a
breach of the Editors’ Code, it can require the publication of a correction
and/or adjudication, the terms and placement of which is determined by IPSO.
25. In
coming to a view on the appropriate remedy in this case, the Committee
considered the seriousness and extent of the breach of the Code. It also noted the
steps taken by the newspaper following IPSO investigation, which included the
removal of the information under complaint from the online article and the
proposal of a correction – notwithstanding that the wording of the correction
did not address the terms of Clause 1 (ii). The Committee therefore considered
that the appropriate remedy was the publication of a correction, putting on
record the correct position regarding the complainant and his former company.
26. The Committee then considered the placement
of the correction. It should appear as a footnote to the online amended
article. The wording of this clarification should be agreed with IPSO in
advance and should make clear that it had been published following an upheld
ruling by the Independent Press Standards Organisation.
Date
complaint received: 04/07/2022
Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 13/10/2022
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