01196-24 Ghuman v Sunday Mirror

Summary of Complaint

1. Sukhi and Kiran Ghuman complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that Sunday Mirror breached Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 2 (Privacy), Clause 12 (Discrimination) and Clause 14 (Confidential sources) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “British couple face trial in the US on cancer drug 'con'”, published on 7 January 2024.

2. The article reported that the complainants had been “accused of exploiting cancer patients by giving them knock-off medication and defrauding the US health system.” It reported the complainants “are said to have given patients cheaper, unregulated versions of lung and pancreatic cancer drugs to up their profits – claims they strongly deny,” and they “face extradition to the US where it is alleged unregulated meds were smuggled from India and Sri Lanka.” It said the complainants “own a £1.3million property in [named US state] with a putting green and pool,” and stated: “in October police arrested the pair at their six-bed mansion in [named town and county] after receiving a warrant from US authorities”.

3. The article went on to report that “the couple previously ran Nottingham-based firm Octavian Security Ltd, which went bust in 2010 owing £5.5m in unpaid taxes to HMRC, according to latest figures”. It also stated: “an indictment alleges [the complainants’] involvement in 25 counts of drug smuggling and healthcare fraud in a plot spanning 2019 to 2023.” The article also reported “a legal document states: ‘The object of the conspiracy was for defendants to unlawfully enrich themselves by smuggling, introducing, receiving and delivering for pay foreign unapproved drugs with the intent to defraud and mislead.’” It included the following quote from the complainants’ solicitor: “Mr and Mr Ghuman deny all of the allegations made in the proceedings against them and are contesting the applications for their extradition. They both expect to be fully exonerated in the proceedings.”

4. The article also appeared online under the headline, “Exclusive: Couple 'exploited cancer patients' by giving them 'knock off medication'”.

5. The complainants said the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1. They disputed their previous company had owed £5.5 million to HMRC; they said the correct figure was £1.6 million.

6. The complainants also said the article was misleading because the medication they purchased was not “dodgy” or a “cheap knock off”. They said the medication was “bona fide exceptional medication” but was just not licensed in the USA.

7. The complainants said that the article breached Clause 2 because it disclosed the location of their USA and UK residences, which they said was unnecessary and irrelevant.

8. The complainants also said the article breached their privacy because it reported parts of the indictments against them.

9. The complainants said the article breached Clause 12 because it had a racial undertone. They said the publication presumed the drugs were “dodgy” because they were from India.

10. The complainants said the article breached Clause 14 because it used material which they said was not in the public domain, namely the indictment against them.

11. The publication did not accept it had inaccurately reported the amount owed by the complainants’ previous company to HMRC. It said the figure was correct according to documents from the liquidator which had been filed with Companies House. It provided a copy of a document called “Liquidator’s Summary of Receipts & Payments”. This document, under the heading “Statement of Affairs OR £” stated “(5,468,404.43) HM Revenue and Customs”.

12. During IPSO’s investigation into the complaint, the publication located a court order from the USA. This reported the amount owed was “approximately £2.6 million” which the publication accepted contradicted the document originally relied upon. In light of this, the publication amended the text and added the following correction as a footnote to the online article:

“A previous version of this article reported that Octavian Security Ltd, which went bust in 2010, owed £5.5m in unpaid taxes to HMRC. In fact when Octavian failed, it had outstanding debts of approximately £2.6 million with HMRC as the largest creditor. We are happy to clarify this.”

13. The publication did not accept it was inaccurate to describe the medication as “dodgy”. It said it was satisfied this description was justified, and quoted the indictment, which stated the complainants had both been accused of "misleading patients into believing they [were] receiving FDA approved drugs", by using the following means:

“Removing foreign unapproved drugs from the boxes or other containers they came in, to conceal the fact that these drugs were produced for foreign markets; not informing the patients being treated that foreign unapproved drugs were being injected into their bodies; frequently keeping the excess drug left in a single-dose or single-use vial so that the drug could be given to the same patient or a different patient in the future; not informing the patients being treated that drugs that came from an already-used single dose or single-use vial were being injected into their bodies; and typically stored the foreign unapproved drugs separately from those that were legally obtained, in separate rooms and separate refrigerators, to conceal their scheme from, employees and others.”

14. The publication also quoted the following from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) documentation to support its position:

“With standards and regulations varying in each country, U.S. consumers face hazards when they order drugs and other FDA-regulated products from unauthorized foreign sources [...] Consumers and physicians purchasing medicines cannot be assured the products they are receiving are legitimate, safe or effective if they are obtained from outside of the FDA-regulated pharmaceutical supply chain.”

The publication said the definition of “knock-off” is "a copy or imitation". The couple had been accused of removing the foreign unapproved drugs from their packaging to imitate the regulated drug - misleading patients into believing they are receiving a full, or untouched vial of medication. Where the FDA advised these medicines could not be assured to be legitimate, it said it did not consider it inaccurate to describe the medication as “dodgy”.

15. The indictment – which the publication provided to support its complaint - also stated as follows: “drugs manufactured in foreign countries appear to have the same names and perhaps even the same ingredients as FDA-approved drugs manufactured in the United States […] however, unless FDA has approved the specific foreign-manufactured drug and that drug is manufactured, processed, packaged (including labelled), and held in full compliance with the FDA-approved NDA, it is an “unapproved new drug”.

16. The publication did not accept the article had breached Clause 2. It disputed the indictment was private, and said it had been unsealed on 15 November 2023 – prior to the article’s publication – and was therefore in the public domain. It provided the order to unseal the indictment.

17. The publication did not consider reporting on the location of the complainants’ residences breached Clause 2. It said property ownership is a matter of public record and the complainants therefore did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy over this information. It added that neither article included the complainants’ addresses.

18. The publication said Clause 12 and Clause 14 were not engaged.

19. The complainants said they contested the liquidator’s report and had litigated over the figure. They provided an Administration report which said their debts were £2.47 million.

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 12 (Discrimination)

i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's, race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.

ii) Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

Clause 14 (Confidential sources)

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

Findings of the Committee

20. The Committee first considered whether the publication had taken care over the accuracy of the £5.5 million figure. The figure had been taken from a liquidator’s report which had been filed via a government agency, Companies House, which the Committee considered to be a reliable source – and the publication had accurately reported the figure as it appeared in the report. While the complainants disputed that the figure provided by the liquidator was accurate, they did not dispute that the liquidator had at one point stated that was thee debt owed by the company. In addition, while documentation did ultimately emerge which contradicted the £5.5 million figure, the Committee considered that the publication, by relying on and accurately reporting the liquidator’s report, had taken care over the accuracy of the information it published. There was no breach of Clause 1 (i) on this point.

21. The Committee welcomed the newspaper’s correction, however it noted this, did not, in itself, mean the information needed to be corrected under the Code. When considering whether something is significantly inaccurate, misleading, or distorted, - and therefore in need of correction under Clause 1 (ii) it is sometimes necessary to take several factors into account, such as the prominence of the allegedly inaccurate claim within the article itself, and to what extent it is included to support the overall narrative of the article.

22. The article’s focus was on the court case involving the complainants’ alleged supply of non-FDA-approved drugs. The information about the debt owed by their former company to HMRC was supplementary background information that was not directly relevant to the main thrust of the article. Additionally, it was not in dispute that the couple’s former business had owed millions of pounds, and that at one point in time a liquidator had valued the sum owed by the company to HMRC at £5.5 million. As such, the information was not significantly inaccurate and therefore not in need of correction under the Code. There was no breach of Clause 1 (ii).

23. The Committee next considered whether it was significantly inaccurate to report the drugs were “dodgy”. Whether drugs are “dodgy” or not, is, to an extent a subjective characterisation, but it was important for the newspaper to demonstrate it had a factual basis for this characterisation.

24. It was not in dispute that the complainants had been indicted in relation to allegations that they had provided patients with medication that was unlicensed in the USA, regardless of whether it was licensed for use in India. It was also not in dispute that the indictment alleged that the complainants had misled patients into believing they were receiving FDA-approved drugs and that they were selling the drugs in the USA without FDA approval. The Committee took into account the warning issued by the FDA that if drugs are obtained from outside of the FDA-regulated pharmaceutical supply chain, there can be no assurance that they are “legitimate, safe or effective”. The Committee noted, further, that the indictment stated “non-FDA-approved foreign-sourced drugs may not be legally imported into…the United States since the safety and efficacy of such drugs has not been verified by the FDA”. In this context, and given it was not in dispute that the drugs had not been approved by the FDA, the Committee did not consider the article was significantly inaccurate or misleading to characterise the drugs as “dodgy” or “knock offs” – especially where the article detailed the charges faced by the complainants, that they “strongly den[ied]” the allegations and that the case was ongoing. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

25. The Committee considered whether publishing details from the indictment breached the complainants’ privacy. The Committee firstly noted that the indictment had been unsealed by the court before the article was published and it was therefore in the public domain at the time of publication. The Committee also had regard for the principle of open justice – and the importance of reporting on court proceedings to ensure the justice system is open and transparent. There was no breach of the Code on this point.

26. The Committee considered whether the article had breached Clause 2 by reporting the approximate locations of where the complainants lived. The Committee did not consider information about the general location of the residences of individuals to be inherently private, particularly when the location itself is general – such as in this instance, where only the US state and the UK town were reported. Furthermore, the information related to court proceedings, and was therefore in the public domain for this reason. There was no breach of Clause 2 on this point.

27. The Committee next considered the complainants’ concern that the article was in breach of Clause 12 because it had a “racial undertone”, and because the complainants were of the view that the publication had presumed the drugs were “dodgy“ because they were from India. Clause 12 is designed to protect specific individuals mentioned by the press from discrimination, rather than concerns about the overall tone of an article. It protects individuals by making clear that references to their protected characteristics should not be pejorative, prejudicial, or irrelevant. Given the complainants’ concerns did not relate to such a references, there was no breach of Clause 12.

28. Clause 14 relates to the moral obligation of journalists to protect their confidential sources of information. The complainants’ concern that the article reported on information not in the public domain did not engage this Clause, and therefore there was no breach of the Code on this point.

Conclusions

29. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

30. N/A

Date complaint received: 15/03/2024

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 21/10/2024