05426-25 A woman v The Sun on Sunday

Summary of Complaint

1. A woman complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Sun on Sunday breached Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 2 (Privacy), Clause 4 (Intrusion into grief or shock), and Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “I am Britain's Gisele Pelicot. I was raped over 1,000 times by my evil partner”, published on 19 October 2025.

2. The article – which appeared on pages 28 and 29 - reported on a woman’s experience of her relationship with the complainant’s partner, who was now deceased. It reported that the “night they met, the victim recalled ‘he suddenly walked over and pulled me in for a kiss. We hadn’t even had a conversation. I was taken aback, flattered. Looking back, he was a predator’”. It said that the woman “told how she was raped more than 1,000 times by [her former partner] while unconscious.” She reportedly said: “’I was on so much medication he was able to rape me every night for more than three years. It was only when he hit me so hard during one attack that I actually woke up. My world fell apart. I was in love with an evil, calculating, manipulative monster.’”

3. The article went on to report:

“His coercive control became so extreme that [she] became anxious and unable to sleep. She says: ‘The doctor prescribed sleeping pills, beta blockers and antidepressants. I was knocked out unconscious at night — then the real nightmare began. I’d wake up with a strange, overwhelming feeling of dread that something wasn’t right. Many times I’d have a towel underneath me in bed or no pyjamas on. It didn’t make sense. [He] would say, ”You’re on that many drugs you just can’t remember what you did”, or, “You enjoyed yourself last night”. I felt embarrassed and ashamed, I had no recollection of us having sex. He would laugh’.”

4. The article further reported that the woman also spoke of an occasion when, “while waiting for the ambulance, he laid her face down on the bed and raped her. [She] says: ‘He was slapping my bottom so hard that I came to, but I couldn’t move or speak because of the drugs. I was frozen still but screaming inside, as he grunted and had sex with me.’” The article also said: “she woke up again while he was raping her” and that the partner was “charged with four counts of rape, one of assault by penetration and multiple rapes between 2021 and 2023. He had filmed one assault on [her], and posted photos of her on websites. He was bailed to appear in court to make a plea. But just six weeks later, before he could face justice, he took his own life, aged 56. [She] says: ‘I was so angry. That coward had robbed me of justice.’”

5. The article also said that the complainant’s partner was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and included a photograph of him on a motorbike.

6. The article also appeared online in substantially the same format, under the headline “RAPE HELL Like Gisele Pelicot I was drugged & raped 1,000 times while unconscious… until one day he hit me so hard I woke up”. This version of the article included information about how to contact a suicide prevention helpline.

7. The complainant said it was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1 to claim that her partner had raped his former partner over 1000 times. She said that this was not supported by any police or court documentation. She said he was charged with rape. However, the fact that he had been charged did not mean that he was guilty. The complainant also said the woman quoted in the article was not a reliable source, and claimed that there was a police investigation against the woman.

8. The complainant added that the article reported her partner’s behaviour of coercive control as established fact, in an inaccurate manner. She said that – to the best of her knowledge – no charge of coercive control had been brought against her partner, and she did not know what evidence the publication had relied on in making this claim

9. The complainant also said the article breached Clause 1 and Clause 4 by referring to her deceased partner in the following terms: “coward” “monster", "evil" and "predator". She said these were prejudicial descriptions which implied guilt and failed to distinguish between fact, comment and conjecture. She said calling someone a coward for dying by suicide, alongside a phone helpline for a suicide crises service, was “disgraceful”.

10. She also said the article breached Clause 1 and Clause 2, as it included a photograph of her partner on his motorbike, and she had not consented to its publication. She also said including this photograph in an article about alleged rape was misleading.

11. The complainant added that the article breached Clause 2 by including private details about: her partner’s mental health; how he took his life; and his Aspergers diagnosis. She said that disclosing that her partner had Aspergers also breached the terms of Clause 12.

12. In addition, the complainant said the article breached Clause 4 as it had been published four months after his death and before the inquest had taken place. She said no regard had been paid to the grief of those who knew her partner.

13. The publication did not accept a breach of the Code. It said the article made clear the partner had not yet been tried or convicted of any offences – and that he had died before his trial – and therefore there could be no possible misapprehension that he had been convicted.

14. To support its position, it provided a photograph of the man’s charge sheet. This included five listed offences, each of which covered a date range during which the offences occurred. It said this implied that there had been a series of rapes, and it noted that the last charge referred to “multiple occasions” of rape over a period of more than two years. The publication said that the Crown Prosecution Service was satisfied that there was sufficient evidence of multiple occasions of rape to support this charge.

15. At any rate, the publication said the complainant was not in a position to know how many times the victim had been raped. It added that the woman had made the claim that she had been raped 1000s of times, and this was attributed to her; readers would be aware that the victim’s narrative was allegation and not legally established fact.

16. The publication said it had been informed by the police that there was no police investigation into the woman – as alleged by the complainant. It provided an email from the police to support its position on this point.

17. The publication said the article did not state that the partner faced charges of coercive control, and that it listed the charges accurately. Rather, it said the victim used this language to describe his behaviour.

18. The publication said it was under no obligation to have regard for the feelings of the complainant’s partner’s family and friends when reporting his alleged rapes, and said that the terms "coward", "evil", "predator" and "monster" were all the victim’s description of the man’s behaviour. It said Clause 4 was not engaged.

19. The complainant said the publication’s response made clear the defendant was charged with rape “on multiple occasions” — not 1000. She further said that the article quoted the individual who said she was “drugged and unconscious” and that she “cannot remember” the events. She said therefore her claim of 1000 rapes was impossible and contradictory.

20. The complainant said she had received an email from the Coroner’s Officer, which she said contradicted the newspaper’s claim there was no police investigation into the individual.

21. On 25 November, during IPSO’s investigation, an inquest into the complainant’s partner’s death returned a verdict of misadventure, and that he died by hanging. She said the article was therefore inaccurate to claim that her partner died by suicide. She also said the article omitted crucial context regarding her partner’s mental health, vulnerability, autism, and the significant pressures he was under —all of which the Coroner identified as central to understanding the circumstances of his death.

22. The publication said the article was published prior to the inquest and therefore it was not in a position to take the Coroner’s verdict into account in the article’s preparation. It said at any rate, given the circumstances of the death, it was not significantly inaccurate to say that he “took his own life”. However, it offered to publish a correction on 27 November, the day after it was made aware of the verdict. It proposed to publish a form of the following wording in print, in its Corrections and Clarifications column, and online as a footnote to an amended online article:

“A 19 Oct article said that [the man] 'took his own life' while facing rape charges. [The man] denied the charges. An inquest on 25 Nov found that he had "previously made attempts to take his own life", and died by hanging. The coroner concluded it was 'Misadventure'. We are happy to clarify.”

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 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.

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.

Findings of the Committee

23. The Committee noted the article accurately reported that the complainant’s partner was “charged with four counts of rape, one of assault by penetration and multiple rapes between 2021 and 2023”. It also noted that the article made clear he had died and therefore had not been convicted. The article was also clearly presented as the individual’s account of her experience with her partner and published several quotes where she had described the alleged assaults. The Committee therefore did not consider that readers would be misled, where it was made clear he had died before the trial and where the article presented the claims as the woman’s account. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

24. The Committee also considered the complainant’s concern that the woman was an unreliable witness, and that it was inaccurate for her to refer to the complainant’s partner as a “coward”, “monster", "evil" and "predator". It noted that the article included many direct quotes from the woman which contained a series of claims about her former partner’s conduct towards her during the relationship. The Committee noted that these claims were presented as the woman’s account of their relationship, directly attributed to her as such, and were distinguished from the factual claims about the charges against the man and his subsequent death.

25. The Committee also recognised the difficulty of verifying claims which are made by one party about another party’s conduct during a relationship. However, the claims made in the article were clearly presented as the woman’s account of her relationship with her former partner – rather than findings which had been made by the court. While the Committee noted the complainant’s concern that the woman was unreliable, it was satisfied that due care had been taken in presenting the woman’s account of the man’s conduct during their relationship as her perception of the relationship, and that the article was not significantly inaccurate, distorted, or misleading by reporting her claims after he died. For this reason, there was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

26. Similarly, the Committee did not consider that the article inaccurately reported that the complainant’s partner had been charged with coercive control. Rather, this claim was the publication’s characterisation of his conduct towards his former partner, based on the woman’s narrative as set out in the article, and clearly distinguished as such. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

27. The Committee then considered whether the photograph of the complainant’s partner breached Clause 1 of the Code. Given it was not in dispute he was the individual being referred to in the article, the Committee did not consider that including a photograph of him rendered the article inaccurate, misleading, or distorted. There was no breach of Clause 1.

28. The Committee considered the complainant’s concern that the article had inaccurately reported her former partner had died by suicide, when in fact the inquest - which occurred after publication - confirmed he died by misadventure. The Committee noted that the article was published before the inquest and its findings could not therefore be taken into account at the time the article was being prepared. It also noted that it was accepted that the complainant had died by hanging, as the article reported, and the Committee did not consider that referring to this as “suicide” represented a lack of care. Therefore, the Committee considered the publication had taken sufficient care in reporting the cause of death, and did not consider reporting the complainant’s death as suicide was significantly inaccurate, where it was not in dispute he had died by hanging and that no third-party had been involved in his death. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

29. The Committee then considered whether omitting context such as information the coroner had given about the complainant’s partner’s mental health, autism, and struggles was a breach of Clause 1. Given the article was published prior to the conclusion of the inquest, it was not possible for this information to be included in the article at time of publication. At any rate, the Committee did not consider that omitting this information rendered the article significantly inaccurate, given it was clearly focusing on the former partner’s subjective account of her own experiences, rather than the manner of the man’s death and the cases and factors which led to his death. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

30. The Committee next considered whether the inclusion of the complainant’s partner’s Aspergers diagnosis, various information about his health and death, and the inclusion of the photograph breached Clause 2 and Clause 12. The Committee noted that the information under complaint related to private information and alleged discriminatory references about the complainant’s partner – rather than the complainant. It also noted that Clause 2 and Clause 12 protects the rights of living individuals from intrusion into their privacy and discrimination, while Clause 4 addresses concerns arising from potentially intrusive coverage relating to those who have died. As such, there was no breach of Clause 2 or Clause 12 on these points.

31. The Committee next considered whether the terms of Clause 4 were breached. The Committee appreciated that the article was upsetting for the complainant to read. However, Clause 4 does not prohibit newspapers from publishing articles about those who have died, or prevent criticism or negative coverage of those who have passed away.

32. The Committee again noted the context of the article: It was presented as the woman’s experience of alleged sexual violence, and the legal proceedings which arose from these. Clause 4 does not restrict the right to report legal proceedings, and the requirements of the Clause must be balanced carefully against the rights of individuals to share their experiences of the criminal justice system. Therefore, taking these factors into consideration, it did not consider there was a breach of Clause 4 on this point.

33. The Committee then considered the inclusion of suicide prevention helplines in the article. The Committee did not consider signposting these resources to readers who may be distressed by the content of the article was insensitive and noted the public health value of sharing such resources with readers who may be affected by news coverage. There was no breach of Clause 4.

Conclusions

34. The complaint was not upheld.

Date complaint received: 21/10/2025

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 07/04/2026