04603-24 The family of Katie Simpson v Sunday World

Summary of Complaint

1. The family of Katie Simpson complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that Sunday World breached Clause 2 (Privacy) and Clause 4 (Intrusion into grief or shock) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in the following articles:

• “KILLER'S SICK SEX 'CULT'/SECRETS AND LIES: SLEAZY KILLER TOOK HIS OWN LIFE”, published on April 28 2024;

• “CRESSWELL SAID 'SORRY' TO KATIE AS SHE LAY IN COFFIN”, published on 26 May 2024;

• “KILLER WATCHED IN HOSPITAL AS VICTIM TOOK HER DYING BREATH”, published on 9 June 2024.

2. All three articles reported on the death of Katie Simpson, who was murdered by Jonathan Creswell in August 2020. The articles were published after Creswell’s death, and after three women had pleaded guilty to charges relating to the obstruction of justice relating to the murder. At the time of the articles’ publication, the women had not yet been sentenced; they were subsequently sentenced on 14 June 2024.

3. The first article under complainant appeared on pages 6-7 of the newspaper. It reported on “police briefings – seen by the Sunday World”. The briefings reported on intimate details of Creswell’s relationships with women, including Ms Simpson, as well as visits he had made to her in hospital and the events which led to Ms Simpson’s murder.

4. The second article – which appeared on pages 4-5 – reported on statements due to be made by the prosecution at the sentencing hearing for the three women. At the time of publication, the hearing was scheduled for 31 May 2024 – 6 days after the article’s publication. The hearing was postponed until 14 June after the article’s publication.

5. The second article reported on Creswell’s “inappropriate” behaviour at Ms Simpson’s wake, as well as details of his relationships with the three convicted women. It also reported that the women had “failed to tell the police”, about Creswell’s behaviour following Ms Simpson’s death during the police investigation. It also included remarks the prosecution had been due to make about the circumstances of Ms Simpson’s death and details of examinations by a pathologist and a senior forensic pathologist.

6. The third article under complaint, which appeared on page 6-7 of the newspaper included quotes from Ms Simpson’s mother’s victim impact statement. The statement detailed Ms Simpson’s mother’s thoughts and feelings about seeing her daughter in hospital, and the impact of being told her daughter had supposedly taken her own life. It also described the shock and pain she felt at finding out Creswell had murdered her daughter, and her sadness, anger and confusion at the other women’s connection to the crime.

7. The third article also quoted from Ms Simpson’s sister’s victim impact statement. In this statement, she described how insulting it was that the three women had been in her home knowing they had “done nothing” to prevent Ms Simpson’s murder.

8. The complainants said the first and second articles under complaint breached Clause 2 by referring to PSNI briefings which made up part of the prosecution case against Creswell. They said that, because of Creswell’s death, his trial did not go ahead. This meant that material prepared by the prosecution for his trial was never heard by the court and therefore publishing it had breached their privacy.

9. The complainants said publishing information which was never heard by the court from the prosecution’s case - in the first and second articles under complaint - also intruded into their grief or shock.

10. The complainants said that the third article under complaint breached Clause 4, as it quoted from victim impact statements made by Ms Simpson’s mother and sister. The family said that some parts of the victim impact statements were due to be heard in court, and would, at this point, have entered the public domain – though they noted, ultimately, that some parts of the statements which appeared in the article were not read out during the sentencing. However, they said the newspaper had published parts of the statement six days prior to when they were due to be heard at court. The family said seeing the statements published “out of the blue and without warning” had caused them significant stress and shock. They also said the article’s publication had led to the sentencing of the three women being delayed by two weeks.

11. The complainants also said the third article breached Clause 2 because they said publishing the victim impact statements prior to the hearing had breached the family’s privacy. They also questioned how the reporter had obtained this information in advance of the hearing, given the victim impact statements “were to be for the eyes of the judge in the case, the legal teams involved in the case, and no-one else”.

12. The publication did not accept that how it had reported on the police briefings had breached Clause 2. It said it was satisfied – due to information provided to it by a confidential source – that the information in the briefings was due to enter the public domain, as the briefings were part of the prosecution’s case against Creswell. The publication said the volume of documentation seen by courts but not expressly referenced at a hearing had increased in recent years, in light of the growing tendency for written advocacy and the court’s practice of reading material in advance to lessen the time taken up by a hearing. It said this increased the importance of the press reporting on court documents, as the public would not otherwise be aware of evidence impacting judicial decision making. It argued that, in the absence of Creswell facing trial, it was particularly important to understand the impact on victims. It said, notwithstanding of the fact that the criminal trial against Mr Creswell had not taken place, it was still in the public interest to report on the police briefings.

13. The publication also did not accept a breach of Clause 4 in regard to the publication of the prosecution’s arguments, nor the victim impact statements. It said it did not accept that fair and accurate reporting on evidence heard – or due to be heard – in court proceedings could ever amount to a breach of Clause 4, given Clause 4 expressly states its provisions should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings. It argued that, when reporting on court proceedings, it was unworkable for the media to seek to identify any potentially impacted parties, and to notify them in advance of articles which may relate to those court proceedings.

14. The publication accepted that the victim impact statements were not in the public domain at the time of the article’s publication. However, it said, absent any reporting restriction imposed, once a victim impact statement had been submitted voluntarily to the court, it would enter the public domain in full at the sentencing hearing for which it had been prepared. It said, in this case, it had sources which had confirmed there had been no request made on behalf of the complainants for the statements not to be published, either partly or fully, and the statements would therefore have become public at the women’s sentencing hearing.

15. The publication did not accept it had breached Clause 2 by publishing the victim impact statements. It said, as acknowledged by the Supreme Court, news is a perishable commodity, and, given that statements were due to enter the public domain in full, there was a clear public interest in reporting on their contents, and no reason to delay publication until the sentencing had taken place.

16. The publication – notwithstanding it did not accept a breach of Clause 2 – said publishing the victim impact statements was justified in the public interest. It said the Ms Simpson’s death had a wide-reaching impact in Northern Ireland. It said there was a public interest in setting out the circumstances in which Creswell had exerted such control over the horse-riding community which Ms Simpson was a part of (to the extent that three individuals received criminal convictions for helping him pervert the course of justice). It said there was also a public interest in reporting: how the PSNI investigated the murder and initially determined that Ms Simpson’s death was suicide; the subsequent lack of action against the relevant PSNI officers; and the families’ call for greater transparency in relation to the police ombudsman investigation.

17. The publication added that – prior to the publication of the articles under complaint – there had been editorial discussions on how best to report on developments in the case in the public interest. It said it conducted regular informal discussions and meetings to discuss potential stories and the public interest in reporting them. It also had fixed weekly meetings on a Friday to discuss potential stories and whether they were fit for publication. It gave the example of a meeting it had two days before the publication of the 28 April article to show that the public interest in its coverage had been discussed internally prior to the first article’s publication.

18. The publication also supplied IPSO with a partially redacted email from a reporter which it said contained a number of potential updates to the story. It noted that it chosen not to publish some of the updates because it did not consider these to be in the public interest.

Relevant Clause Provisions

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 4 (Intrusion into grief or shock)

In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. These provisions should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings.

Findings of the Committee

19. The Committee first wished to extend its condolences to the family of Ms Simpson for the distressing circumstances surrounding this complaint.

20. The Code protects the right of publications to report material in the public domain, and there is a general presumption that material heard in court will become public. The right to report on information which becomes or will become public through court proceedings is strong but not absolute. This was a highly unusual case where the timing of the disclosure of material from court was relevant to the Committee’s consideration.

21. The Committee considered whether the newspaper had breached the family’s privacy by publishing material from the prosecution’s case and police briefings. This material, ultimately, was not made public via court proceedings against Creswell, as he died before the trial against him took place. However, the Committee noted that Clause 2 relates to intrusions into individual’s private and family life, home, health, and correspondence. In this case, the information in question related to the prosecution’s case and information it planned to present as part of its argument before the court, rather than information about the family’s private life, home, health, or correspondence. In such circumstances, there was no breach Clause 2.

22. The Committee considered whether reporting on the prosecution’s arguments and the police briefings - some elements of which had not been disclosed during court proceedings due to Creswell’s suicide - amounted to a breach of Clause 4. While the victim impact statements related to the experiences, thoughts and feelings of the family, the arguments and briefings were instead a retelling of the events which led to the crime – and therefore formed an important part of the narrative of the offence, which had ultimately culminated in legal proceedings against the three women. Given the Clause specifically protects the right of publications to report on legal proceedings, and the articles simply set out the prosecution case – rather than seeking to mock or make light of the circumstances of Ms Simpson’s death, for example - the Committee did not consider there was a breach of Clause 4.

23. The Committee considered whether the publication of the victim impact statements intruded into the family’s grief or shock, in breach of Clause 4. Ms Simpson’s mother and sister had submitted the statements on the basis that they could be referred to by the judge during open court proceedings – and parts of the statements were indeed referred to by the judge in their sentencing remarks. They accepted when they had submitted their statements, they had not requested any part of the statements were withheld from the court. While the statements were personal and referenced extremely sensitive matters, they were prepared in the knowledge that they could become public. In these circumstances, the Committee did not consider publishing parts of the statements, in and of itself, represented an intrusion into the family’s grief or shock.

24. In regards to the timing of the publication of the statements, The Committee acknowledged it was distressing that they had been made public earlier than expected. However, the statements were due to become public imminently and the publication did not reveal any information which the family had not already disclosed with the understanding it could become public. Further, court dates are subject to change, and the timing of the disclosure of the information would not have been within the family’s control, where the statements were due to be released via the court. The Committee also considered the early publication in the context of the timeline of the events of the story as a whole; Ms Simpson’s death had taken place five years previously, and the alleged intrusion did not take place in the immediate aftermath of the incident. Considering these factors, the Committee did not consider information from the statements being published early was so insensitive it amounted to intrusion in breach of the Clause.

25. The Committee considered whether publishing victim impact statements before they were heard in court breached the privacy of the family members who had given the statements. Due to the principle of open justice, in the absence of reporting restrictions, information which is heard in court or disclosed via document submitted to the court will generally be expected enter the public domain. While the impact statements had not yet been heard by the court at the time of the article’s publication – and parts of the statements had not been made public in court proceedings - Clause 2 considers the extent to which information will become public. The family had submitted the statements on the basis they could be heard at open court. In such circumstances, the Committee considered the publication had a reasonable cause to believe that the witness impact statements would shortly enter the public domain, and therefore, the newspaper was entitled publish them. There was no breach of Clause 2 on this point.

Conclusions

26. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

27. N/A

Date complaint received: 13/09/2024

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 02/04/2025