01780-24 A woman v newburytoday.co.uk

Summary of Complaint

1. A woman, acting on behalf of herself and the behalf of her daughter, complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that newburytoday.co.uk breached Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 2 (Privacy) and Clause 9 (Reporting of crime) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article published in April 2024.

2. The article – which appeared online only - reported on a court case. The article included references to the complainant’s daughter which had been made in the proceedings and included a street-level address for the defendant.

3. The complainant emailed the newspaper two days after the article’s publication to complain that the article had included references to her daughter. She said that a Section 45 Order had been made in earlier proceedings which prohibited her identification– she said the reference to her daughter in the article was a breach of the Section 45 Order because her daughter was still under 18-years-old.

4. On the day the complaint was made, the publication removed the complainant’s daughter’s name and references to her from the article. The following day, the article was removed from the homepage, and the day after that, it was removed entirely.

5. The complainant then complained directly to IPSO. She said the article breached Clause 2 and Clause 9 of the Editors’ Code as it had reported the references which had been made to her daughter in the trial of the defendant on which the article reported, together with other identifying information.

6. The complainant asserted that the judge in the trial on which the article reported had said that her daughter should not be mentioned in any way which would identify her given that a Section 45 Order had been made in the earlier proceedings and was still in place. She said that the defendant’s barrister had also assured her that the judge had alerted journalists to the existence of the Section 45 Order and that when she had forwarded the article to the court this had prompted the judge to warn journalists that her daughter was not to be identified in relation to the trial of the defendant.

7. The complainant believed that the judge made her daughter’s age known towards the beginning of the trial – she said that this was probably on the second or third day of trial. She said about a week into the trial the Judge also reminded the court of the restrictions in place.

8. During IPSO’s investigation, the complainant provided an email from a member of the court staff. This email said:

we have discussed previously, the background to this is that in the trial of [name] there was a Reporting Restriction relevant to your daughter[…]. The reporting restriction is called a Section 45 order, and I sent this to you when we previously corresponded […]. In the trial of [the defendant] the Judge did not make a Section 45 Reporting Restriction prohibiting the identification of [your daughter] because she was not a witness or a victim in that case. However in the trial of [the defendant] the Judge made it clear in court that if [her] name was published in respect of [the defendant’s] trial then it would be a breach of the reporting restrictions issued in the [earlier trial] and that they remain in force until [your daughter] is 18 years old. So her name or any other details that could lead to her identification being published would be a breach of the reporting restrictions.”

9. The complainant also said the article breached Clause 1 as it had published an inaccurate address for the defendant; she said that he had given a different address during court proceedings and the publication of the address in the article amounted to an intrusion into her and her daughter’s privacy.

10. The publication did not accept a breach of the Code. To support its position, it set out the timeline of events which led to the article’s publication.

11. It said the article was published on the sixth day of the defendant’s trial. The next day, the defendant’s barrister informed the publication’s court reporter that it could not publish information which had been heard in the proceedings which related to the complainant’s daughter. The publication said this had not been mentioned before, and therefore it removed the references to the complainant’s daughter from the article the following day for pragmatic reasons and to avoid potential legal consequences. The publication also spoke to the judge on this date who referenced the Section 45 Order made in the earlier proceedings and said this prevented matters concerning the complainant’s daughter heard during the earlier proceedings from being reported. The next day, the newspaper removed the article as an act of goodwill while it investigated the complaint. However, due to an oversight, it was only removed from the home page and remained accessible elsewhere. The article was removed entirely the following day and was not republished.

12. The publication accepted that the complainant’s daughter was the subject of a Section 45 Order which had been made in the earlier proceedings which prevented her from being identified in relation to those proceedings until she was 18 years old. However, it maintained that there was no breach of the Code by reporting the references which had been made to the complainant’s daughter in the trial of the defendant. It said there was no automatic anonymity for those under 18-years-old who are witnesses in Crown Court proceedings and that there were no reporting restrictions imposed during the trial of the defendant. The publication said that, as the Crown Court had not made a Section 45 Order in relation to the proceedings against the defendant, the complainant’s daughter had no expectation of privacy in relation to the references to her made during the trial of the defendant.

13. The publication said it did not consider the complainant’s daughter to be a witness – as defined by the terms of Clause 9 - given that she was only referenced in the proceedings, and she did not make any appearance in the witness box. It said there was also no suggestion she had witnessed the offence for which the defendant was being tried. In any event, it noted that the terms of Clause 9 (ii) of the Code make clear that it does not restrict the right of the press to report on legal proceedings.

14. Regarding the address which appeared in the article, it said it had published the address of a man on trial for a serious crime. Therefore, it said it had not published any private information, but had published an accurate, contemporaneous, and privileged report of a court case free of reporting restrictions. It said there was no expectation of privacy in hearings held in open court where no restrictions were in place.

15. The publication confirmed that a reporter had attended the defendant’s trial. It accepted that it was possible, during an early stage of the proceedings, that the complainant’s daughter’s age may have been mentioned. The publication said that, although its reporter may not have been in court at that time, it should not have made any difference to press reporting according to the law and to IPSO's published guidance. It said there was no automatic anonymity for youths in adult courts and quoted IPSO’s guidance on children’s rights, which says that journalists are allowed to name a child who has attended crown court, or if their name is already in the public domain, or if the court has given permission to name them.

16. Turning to the alleged breach of Clause 1, the publication did not accept a breach of the Code. It said the defendant had appeared in court previously and, in court documentation relating to this appearance, the address given was the same as the one reported in the article. It supplied a spreadsheet provided by the court which listed this address to support its position. The publication said the address had not been read out at the hearing on which the article reported as it had already been heard during the hearing before the Magistrates Court. The publication provided an email from the Crown Court listing office, which confirmed this. The publication said that wherever the defendant may actually have been living, it was obliged to report his address as stated in official court documents.

Relevant Clause Provisions

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.

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.

9 (Reporting of Crime)*

i) Relatives or friends of persons convicted or accused of crime should not generally be identified without their consent, unless they are genuinely relevant to the story.

ii) Particular regard should be paid to the potentially vulnerable position of children under the age of 18 who witness, or are victims of, crime. This should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings.

iii) Editors should generally avoid naming children under the age of 18 after arrest for a criminal offence but before they appear in a youth court unless they can show that the individual’s name is already in the public domain, or that the individual (or, if they are under 16, a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult) has given their consent. This does not restrict the right to name juveniles who appear in a crown court, or whose anonymity is lifted.

Findings of the Committee

17. Committee understood that the complainant had significant concerns regarding her daughter being named in an article about the trial of the defendant, given that she was still a minor. However, the Committee wished to note at the outset that Clause 9 does not prohibit children from being named in the context of legal proceedings, provided particular regard is paid to their potentially vulnerable position should they be a witness to, or victim of, a crime. Therefore, the question for the Committee was not whether the complainant’s daughter had been named – which was not in dispute – but rather whether, in naming her, the publication had paid due regard to her potentially vulnerable position.

18. It was not in dispute that the complainant’s daughter was the subject of a Section 45 Court Order which had been made in earlier court proceedings, and that events connected to those proceedings had been referenced during the trial of the defendant on which the article reported. It was also accepted that, at the time of publication, the complainant’s daughter was not yet 18 years old. 

19. Once the complainant had made the publication aware of her daughter’s age, the references to her were removed from the article the same day. The entire article was then removed the following day. The Committee noted it was regrettable that it was only initially removed from the homepage – however, the Committee was satisfied this was a genuine oversight and, given that the references to the complainant’s daughter had already been removed from the article, this was not material to its consideration of Clause 9 (ii).

20. Having considered the speed at which the publication had removed the references to the complainant’s daughter from the article, the Committee considered that these actions showed due regard for the potential vulnerable position of the complainant’s daughter. There was no breach of Clause 9 (ii).

21. The Committee next considered whether the references in the article to the complainant’s daughter breached Clause 2. Both parties accepted that no Section 45 Order had been made in the trial of the defendant on which the article reported. Given that the references to the complainant’s daughter had been made in open court, and there were no reporting restrictions in place prohibiting the publication from identifying the complainant’s daughter in the context of the trial of the defendant, the complainant and her daughter did not have an expectation of privacy over the information about her which appeared in the article, namely the references to her which had been made during the trial of the defendant. For these reasons, there was no breach of Clause 2.

22. The Committee then considered whether the inclusion of the address mentioned in the article had breached Clause 2. The Committee noted that this address had not been attributed to the complainant or her daughter in the article, but was reported as that of the defendant to help correctly identify him in relation to the court report. In these circumstances, there was no breach of Clause 2 on this point.

23. The Committee next turned to the question of whether reporting the address as the defendant’s was inaccurate. Newspapers are responsible for accurately reporting what is heard in court; they are not responsible for the accuracy of what is heard by the court. Therefore, the question for the Committee was whether the newspaper had accurately reported the address which was given to the court. The Committee noted that the publication had provided evidence from the court to show that this address had been given as the defendant’s during court proceedings. As such, it was not inaccurate for the newspaper to report the address listed in court documents. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

Conclusions

24. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

N/A

Date complaint received: 01/05/2024

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 23/12/2024