01072-25 Brown v Daily Mail

Summary of Complaint

1. Mike Brown complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that Daily Mail breached Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 2 (Privacy), and Clause 3 (Harassment) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in the preparation and publication of an article headlined “The Lib Dem council pleading poverty as it tries to hike taxes by 25%... while one of its senior executives is ‘Working from Home’ 3,500 miles away in Kyrgyzstan!”, published on 1 February 2025.

2. The article reported on the complainant’s remote working arrangements. It reported he was “the Deputy Town Centre Manager of Windsor, Eton and Ascot”, and that he “chooses to live in, and work full-time from, deepest Kyrgyzstan”. The article also described Kyrgyzstan as a “hopelessly corrupt former Soviet Republic”.

3. The article went on to report: “In Mike Brown’s Kyrgyzstan, where average workers bring home around £350 a month, a British public sector salary puts you high on the hog”. It further reported: “It’s unclear how and why this longstanding employee […] moved to the other side of the world or why his overseas working arrangement, which began in 2021, was given the go-ahead.” It added: “On paper, it’s a ‘boots on the ground’ job: the sort of role that can only be properly done by an official who spends time on the beat, building intimate relationships with the local community.”

4. The article included a photograph of the complainant.

5. The article also appeared online in substantially the same format. This version of the article was published on 31 January 2025.

6. Prior to the article’s publication, on 30 January, a reporter acting on behalf of the publication sent the following email to the complainant:

“Dear Mike,

[…]

I gather that you are the member of Council staff who has for several years been permitted to work remotely from Kyrgyzstan, as per the FOI disclosure here:

https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/council-anddemocracy/strategies-and-policies/freedom-information/information-requests/foi000834-foi-hr.

Since your job is to be the Deputy Town Centre Manager of Windsor, Eton and Ascot, this raises a number of questions.

Among them:

- How can someone effectively manage more than three town centres from more than 4,000 miles away?

- Why isn’t the job being done by someone who actually lives in the UK?

- What possessed the Council to greenlight an arrangement that means a member of staff is based in a time zone that is six hours ahead of their colleagues?

-How are sensitive communications secured when that employee is working from a former Soviet state bordering China, in a region notorious for cyber-hacking?

-Are you being paid the same salary you would receive if you were coming into the office each day? And are you paying UK tax on those earnings?

- Who is ensuring that you are working contracted hours, and how can they do that?

- What are local taxpayers – who are about to face a tax increase of hundreds of pounds – supposed to think of this arrangement?

Obviously I will be looking at all of these issues in my piece, but I wanted to see whether you – or indeed anyone from RBWM – want to offer any comment, guidance, context or defence of your working arrangements. If so, I will of course be happy to reflect it in our coverage. I’m of course happy to speak off or entirely on the record.”

7. The complainant did not respond to the reporter’s request for comment.

8. Also, prior to the articles’ publication, on 30 January, the reporter sent the following email to the complainant’s employer:

“[…]

To that end, I note that according to an FOI answer the council supplied in September [link below], […] one member of staff is allowed to be based permanently in Kyrgyzstan, a country that is six time zones, more than 4,000 miles, and a ten hour flight away.

This seems, at best, unfortunate, so I will be mentioning it in my piece. But I wanted to ask:

• Who is this person?

• What do they do?

• Why are they allowed to work in Kyrgyzstan?

• How does this arrangement represent good value for taxpayers?

In addition, I wanted to find out why the council allows *any* members of staff to work remotely from foreign countries at a time when its finances are so strained?

Do let me know – and many thanks!”

9. Around 24 hours later, on 31 January, the reporter followed up with the following email:

“Hello

I sent the below query 24 hours ago and wanted to update you to say firstly that we will be going to print with a story about this arrangement later today and secondly that it will contain the following details:

[…]

• Despite this fact, eight members of staff were in 2024 permitted to work from overseas.

• One of these employees worked full time from Kyrgyzstan.

• He is Mike Brown, the Deputy Town Centre manager of Windsor, Ascot and Eton,

This raises all the issues I flagged yesterday. However given the details we now have regarding Mr Brown’s identity and role it also shows RBWM in a particularly poor light. Local taxpayers will of course want to know exactly how the Borough believes someone living 4,000 miles away can effectively manage their town centres. […]

If you would like to comment, please do in the next few hours.”

10. The complainant’s employer acknowledged the email seven minutes later, and said it was “approving a line this afternoon to send back to you as soon as practical”. There was no further communication from the complainant’s employer, and the article was subsequently published.

11. The complainant said the article’s headline breached Clause 1 by referring to him as one of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s “senior executives”. He also said that the article was inaccurate to refer to him as the “Deputy Town Centre Manager of Windsor, Eton & Ascot”. He said he was neither a senior executive, nor a manager: his job title was Town Centre Assistant. He said that the publication had not taken adequate steps to verify his job title or level of seniority, as – although the publication had approached him and his employer ahead of the article’s publication - he felt the journalist’s emails were not sufficiently distinguished as a request for comment, and did not make clear the writer’s intention to publish an article about his working arrangements. He also said his employment contract did not permit him to respond to the journalist’s request for comment.

12. The complainant also said the article breached Clause 1 by reporting that his overseas working arrangement “began in 2021”. He said his remote working arrangements had been officially agreed in October 2018.

13. He also said it was inaccurate to report that he “chooses to live in, and work full-time from, deepest Kyrgyzstan”. He said this inaccurately implied that he worked full-time in one role, when he actually worked multiple part-time roles. He also said the article inaccurately implied that he lived in a remote, rural location, when he actually lived in a city with modern infrastructure. He added that the article breached Clause 1 as it described Kyrgyzstan as a “hopelessly corrupt former Soviet Republic”, as this inaccurately implied that he posed a cybersecurity risk because of his working location.

14. The complainant said the article breached Clause 1 by reporting that in Kyrgyzstan, “a British public sector salary puts you high on the hog”. He said this was inaccurate as it suggested his salary was excessive, which he said was not the case.

15. The complainant then said the article was inaccurate to report that his job was “a ‘boots on the ground’ job: the sort of role that can only be properly done by an official who spends time on the beat, building intimate relationships with the local community”. He said this falsely implied that his role required his physical presence, but this was not reflected by any job description or policy document for the role. He said he had been conducting his role remotely since 2018 without issue.

16. The complainant also said that the article implied that his employer did not have sufficient oversight over his work. He said that his hours and productivity are routinely monitored, and he has successfully met all performance requirements.

17. The complainant also said the article breached Clause 2 as it included a photograph of him, which he said was obtained from his Facebook profile without his consent. He said that, by publishing this photograph, the publication had identified him against his will and breached his copyright. He said that the article in general had also breached his right to privacy, because it had led to unwanted public scrutiny and professional discomfort.

18. The complainant added that the publication breached Clause 3 because it had given him less than 24 hours to respond to their request for comment, and because it didn’t take into consideration that, under the terms of his employment contract, he is not permitted to speak to the media.

19. The publication did not accept that the article was significantly inaccurate to refer to the complainant as a “senior executive” or to report that his job title was “Deputy Town Centre Manager of Windsor, Eton & Ascot”. It said that it had taken care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information by reaching out to both the complainant and his employer ahead of publication, and referencing what it believed to be the complainant’s job title in these emails. It said it had not received a response correcting the job title. It added that the complainant’s job title, as reported in the article, had been sourced from the website of a volunteer charity in Windsor, where he was listed as a Deputy Town Centre Manager, and provided a screenshot of the website in question. It said it understood that the website had referred to the complainant as a Deputy Town Centre Manager since 2018, and that the complainant had been listed as a “Town Centre Assistant Manager” in a 2016 article on a local newspaper’s website.

20. Although it said it did not consider the alleged inaccuracy to be significant, on the same day that IPSO shared the complaint with the publication, it offered to amend the complainant’s job title in the online version of the article to “Town Centre Assistant”, and to remove references to his being a Senior Executive and a manager – if the complainant could provide evidence of his job title. Within one week of the complainant providing evidence of his job title, the publication also offered to publish the following wording in its corrections and clarifications box, as a footnote to the amended online article, and as a standalone correction:

“A feature on February 1 about Mike Brown, an employee of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead who worked from Kyrgyzstan, described him as a Deputy Town Manager and “senior executive”. In fact, Mr Brown is a Town Centre Assistant, and would like to make clear that he is not a senior employee.”

21. The publication did not accept that the article was significantly inaccurate to report that the complainant’s overseas working arrangement “began in 2021”. It said this did not materially change the thrust of the story: that the complainant had been permitted, over the course of multiple years, to work from overseas for a local council. It initially said this information had been sourced from a Freedom of Information (FOI) response, but later acknowledged that the FOI covered only the calendar year ending 31 December 2023. It said that a confidential source who had provided information about the complainant’s working arrangements had suggested that he began working overseas “post-pandemic”, but that it was not able to provide any notes or correspondence in this regard – given its obligation, under Clause 14 (Confidential sources) to protect its source’s confidentiality. It said the source was reliable, as they were a senior figure at the complainant’s employer, with first-hand knowledge about concerns at the council regarding working from home arrangements.

22. However, it added that Facebook posts from the complainant indicated that he had been in Kyrgyzstan in 2021, as his earliest social media post from the country was in 2021 - and that he had been in the UK for at least some of 2020 and 2021. However, it said the posts had now been deleted, and these were not provided to IPSO.

23. Nevertheless, 4 days after IPSO began its investigation, and 31 days after it was first made aware of the complaint, the publication offered to amend the online article to state that the complainant’s overseas working arrangements began in 2018, and to include this in its above proposed correction if the complainant wished.

24. The publication did not accept that the article breached Clause 1 by reporting that the complainant “chooses to live in, and work full-time from, deepest Kyrgyzstan”, or that Kyrgyzstan is a “hopelessly corrupt former-Soviet Republic.” It said its use of the phrase “full-time” was a reference to the complainant working year-round from Kyrgyzstan, and that in any case by his own account he worked 37 hours a week, which could reasonably be referred to as ‘full-time’. It said “deepest Kyrgyzstan” was a turn of phrase used to emphasise that the complainant’s remote working location was far from his employer in the Royal Borough of Maidenhead and Windsor, rather than a specific claim as to where he was based within Kyrgyzstan. It also did not accept that the reference to Kyrgyzstan being a “hopelessly corrupt former Soviet Republic” implied that the complainant was vulnerable to cyber-hacking.

25. The publication did not accept that the article was misleading to report that, in Kyrgyzstan, “a British public sector salary puts you high on the hog”. It said that this made no reference to the complainant’s salary specifically, and that it was reasonable to state that – compared to the average Kyrgyz salary – the complainant’s salary was likely to be high. The publication noted that, by the complainant’s own account, his salary more than 6 times the average Kyrgyz wage.

26. The publication also did not accept that the article was inaccurate to refer to the complainant’s role as a “’boots on the ground job’”. It says that this was clearly conjecture, and that it was reasonable to state that a job relating to town management would inherently necessitate being physically present in the local area.

27. The publication did not accept that the article implied the complainant’s employer did not have oversight of his work.

28. The publication also did not accept that the article breached Clause 2 by including a photograph of the complainant. It said the photograph had been sourced from the complainant’s Facebook page, and that anyone could view the photograph. It said, therefore, the photograph was in the public domain and the complainant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy over it. It said that the complainant’s concerns about reputational damage and not having consented to the article’s publication did not engage the terms of Clause 2.

29. The publication also did not accept that it had breached Clause 3 by publishing the story slightly less than 24 hours after the complainant was approached for comment. It said the complainant’s concerns in this regard were contradictory: he had stated both that the publication had harassed him by contacting him for comment, but also that it should have provided him with more time for comment. It noted that, even if it had provided him with more time to comment, he said he would not have been able to respond as his employment contract prevented him from speaking to the press. The publication said these concerns did not engage the terms of Clause 3.

30. The complainant said that his Facebook profile was set to ‘Friends Only’ but noted that the picture used in the article was a profile picture which was viewable to the public. However, he said that Clause 2 had been breached as the remainder of his profile was private and this therefore made clear he did not consent to his picture being shared elsewhere.

Relevant Clause 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.

Clause 14 (Confidential sources)

Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources of information.

Findings of the Committee

31. The Committee noted that, ahead of the article’s publication, the newspaper took several steps to verify the complainant’s job title, including approaching the complainant and his employer for comment. In the email requesting comment, the Committee noted that it had been specified that the story would be going to print and referred to the complainant as “Deputy Town Centre Manager of Windsor, Eton and Ascot”. However, neither the complainant nor his employer had responded to correct this.

32. The Committee also noted that the publication had been able to evidence that the complainant had been referred to as “Deputy Town Centre Manager” by a local charity’s website, and that this reference was online at the time of the article’s publication. In light of this the Committee considered that the publication had taken reasonable steps to verify the complainant’s job title, and had taken care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information in this regard. As such, there was no breach of Clause 1 (i) on this point.

33. The publication accepted – once the complainant had provided proof of his job title – that the headline and text of the article were inaccurate to refer to him as one of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s “Senior Executives” and the “Deputy Town Centre Manager of Windsor, Eton and Ascot”. However, it did not accept that this was significantly inaccurate.

34. The Committee considered whether the article was significantly inaccurate on the above point, and therefore required correction under the terms of Clause 1 (ii). The Committee noted that the reference to the complainant as a “Senior Executive” appeared prominently within the headline. It also noted that the thrust of the article was that the complainant’s employer was allowing an employee in a senior leadership position to work remotely from 3,500 miles away in Kyrgyzstan – and the question of the complainant’s job title and seniority in his role was therefore highly relevant to the narrative of the article. Given this, the references to the complainant’s job title and seniority were significantly inaccurate and therefore in need of correction under the terms of Clause 1 (ii).

35. The Committee then turned to whether the correction offered by the publication was sufficient to address the terms of Clause 1 (ii), which requires that significantly inaccurate information is corrected promptly and with due prominence.

36. The Committee noted that the wording of the correction made clear that the references to the complainant as “a Deputy Town Manager” and “Senior Executive” were inaccurate, and put the correct position on record: that the complainant’s job title was Town Centre Assistant and that he was not a Senior Executive.

37. With regards to the promptness of the correction, the Committee noted that on the same day that IPSO shared the complaint with the publication, the publication had offered to publish a correction, if the complainant could provide evidence of his job title. The Committee considered that this was a reasonable request, given that the publication had taken several steps to establish the complainant’s job title prior to publication, including approaching his employer, but had not received a response. In such circumstances, taking the opportunity to ensure the correction accurately reflected the complainant’s job title did not reflect a lack of promptness, and the Committee noted that within one week of receiving proof of the complainant’s job title, the publication confirmed the wording and location of the correction it was willing to offer. It therefore considered the publication’s offer of a correction to have been sufficiently prompt.

38. With regards to the correction’s prominence, the claim that the complainant was a “Senior Executive” had appeared in the headline of the article, whilst the incorrect job title had appeared in the text. The publication offered to publish the correction in print in its Clarification and Corrections column, to publish a standalone correction, and to add a footnote correction to the online article. In these circumstances, the Committee considered that the offered correction would be duly prominent: The Corrections and Clarifications column in the print edition would be where readers could expect to find corrections; and the online version of the article had been amended to remove the inaccurate information, and therefore a footnote correction and standalone correction would be sufficiently prominent. As the proposed corrections corrected the record, were duly prominent, and were offered with appropriate promptness, there was no breach of Clause 1 (ii) on this point.

39. The Committee next turned to the article’s claim that the complainant’s working arrangements began in 2021. The publication said it had relied on information given to it by a confidential source which suggested the complainant’s overseas working arrangements had begun ‘post-pandemic’ – and had set out why it considered the source trustworthy, given they held a senior position with the complainant’s employer. It also noted that the publication had reached out to both the complainant and his employer to clarify the nature of the complainant’s working arrangements prior to the article’s publication. While it had not specifically asked when the arrangement had begun, it had asked the complainant whether he wished “to offer any comment, guidance, context or defence of your working arrangements”. This was an opportunity for the complainant or his employer to offer guidance on the nature of his working arrangements; while he was not obliged to do so, the Committee considered that this did not mean that the publication had not taken care in reporting on the complainant’s remote working arrangements. In light of this, the Committee considered that the publication had taken care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information in this regard. There was no breach of Clause 1 (i).

40. The Committee noted that it was not in dispute by the publication that the complainant had worked remotely from Kyrgyzstan since 2018. The Committee considered that the exact year the arrangement began made no material difference to the thrust of the article – that over a number of years the complainant had been permitted by his publicly-funded employer to work remotely from Kyrgyzstan – the Committee did not consider the difference between the two dates to represent a significant inaccuracy. The Committee did not find a breach of Clause 1 (ii) on this point.

41. The Committee next considered whether the article breached Clause 1 by reporting that the complainant “chooses to live in, and work full-time from, deepest Kyrgyzstan”, and by referring to Kyrgyzstan as a “hopelessly corrupt former-Soviet Republic.” Where it was not in dispute that the complainant worked 37 hours a week remotely from Kyrgyzstan year-round, it did not consider it inaccurate to refer to him as working full-time.

42. Although the complainant disputed that “deepest Kyrgyzstan” was an accurate characterisation of where he lived, the Committee noted that the point being emphasised was the distance between the country and the UK, where his employer was located. It also did not consider that the article inferred that the complainant was a cyber security risk, as he claimed – it did not state that this was the case at any point. The Committee did not find a breach of Clause 1 on these points.

43. The Committee turned to whether the article breached Clause 1 by reporting that in Kyrgyzstan “a British public sector salary puts you high on the hog”. The Committee noted the complainant’s position that this misleadingly implied his salary was excessive. However, it considered that the comparison being made was that the UK salary was significantly greater than average worker salaries in Kyrgyzstan where the complainant lived – which the complainant did not appear to dispute. It was not inaccurate or misleading to make this comparison, and the Committee did not find a breach of Clause 1 in this regard.

44. Turning to whether the article was inaccurate to refer to the complainant’s role as a “’boots on the ground job’”, the Committee noted the complainant’s position that being physically present in the local area was not part of his job description and that he was able to carry out his role to his employer’s satisfaction. However, this was framed as the publication’s perception of the role – as it said “on paper, it's a 'boots on the ground' job” - and the article did not claim that the complainant’s job description restricted him to the Windsor and Maidenhead area. Given the complainant’s role was as Town Centre Assistant it was reasonable for the publication to infer that his role was focused around goings on in the local area. The Committee did not find a breach of Clause 1 on this point.

45. The Committee next considered whether the article claimed that the complainant’s employer did not have sufficient oversight over his work. It noted the publication’s position that at no point did the article make this claim, and that the complainant had been unable to specify where such a claim was made. The Committee could not find any claims of lack of oversight in the in the article, and therefore did not find a breach of Clause 1.

46. The Committee next turned to Clause 2. It noted that the photograph of the complainant showed only his complainant’s likeness and, as acknowledged by the complainant, had been publicly visible on social media. The Committee noted that newspapers are allowed to publish information which is already in the public domain, and it considered that the photograph did not reveal anything over which the complainant had a reasonable expectation of privacy – someone’s physical appearance is not, in and of itself, private information.

47. The Committee noted the complainant’s concerns that the article had breached his right to privacy by leading to unwanted public scrutiny and professional discomfort. The Committee noted that Clause 2 does not prevent publication of information on the grounds that it may cause unwanted scrutiny or discomfort. In regard to the complainant’s concern that publication of his image breached copyright, the Committee noted that this was a legal concern which was not within IPSO’s remit. In such circumstances, the newspaper did not breach Clause 2 by publishing the complainant’s photograph.

48. The Committee next considered the complainant’s concerns under Clause 3. He had said the publication had harassed him by not providing him sufficient time to reply to its request for comment, as the article was published within 24 hours of the journalist’s approach. He also said, however, that the publication should have taken into consideration that he was not authorised to respond to media requests as an employee. While the Committee recognised the complainant objected to not being given a longer window to respond to respond to the journalist’s request for comment, this did not constitute intimidation or harassment. There was no breach of Clause 3 on this point.

Conclusions

49. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

50. The correction which was offered clearly put the correct position on record, and was offered promptly and with due prominence, and should now be published.

Date complaint received: 21/03/2025

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 07/10/2025