06091-24 A woman v The Sun

Summary of Complaint

1. A woman complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Sun breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) and Clause 2 (Privacy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “BAD AIRTITUDE”, published on 24 August 2024.

2. The article reported on an internal investigation into the complainant’s conduct by her employer, an airline. It reported that the complainant had “been suspended following ‘concern over her inflight behaviour’” and that “[the complainant] was grounded after a flight to Malaga when business class passengers questioned her professionalism”. It went on to report that “[c]olleagues were also alarmed over how she interacted with customers on last month’s flight and in other recent situations” and “sources say she is now the focus of an investigation after becoming ‘frustrated’ with passengers when they had pressed the assistance button above their seats.” It also said that a “pilot was said to have been among BA staff worried about Leah’s alleged ‘shoddy performance’.”

3. The article also reported that the complainant “is also likely to be in trouble for posting suggestive videos online of herself in her BA uniform. One is captioned: ‘So if you wanna come to my hotel all you gotta do is holla at me.’”

4. The article also included details about a previous criminal case, in which the complainant was the victim. It reported that she had “accused” a British celebrity “of abusing her” and went on to say that the celebrity “got a 12-month suspended prison sentence after he was found guilty last September of racially aggravated common assault against [the complainant] in July 2022.”

5. The article closed by stating: “Asked about [the complainant’s] suspension, BA said: ‘It wouldn’t be appropriate to comment while we continue to investigate the matter.’”

6. The article was accompanied by two photographs of the complainant. One showed her in uniform, from the chest up, sticking her tongue out at the camera. A second showed her kneeling, and appeared to have been taken using a mirror from a side angle – she was not wearing her uniform in the second photograph.

7. The article also appeared online in substantively the same format, under the headline “BAD AIRITUDE BA stewardess racially abused by Blue’s Lee Ryan suspended over ‘inflight behaviour’”.

8. The complainant said that the article inaccurately reported on her employer’s internal investigation into her alleged conduct, in breach of Clause 1. She said that she had not been suspended for the reasons given in the article: there was no evidence that passengers had complained about her; she had not been suspended for “shoddy” performance; and she had not been suspended for posting suggestive photographs. She said the sole reason for her suspension was an alleged inability to complete the in-flight food service. The complainant also said that the article inaccurately reported that the flight she had been on had been grounded due to her behaviour, which she said was not the case. She said that, after the flight in question, she had continued to fly for a week-and-a-half before being suspended.

9. To support her position on this point, the complainant provided correspondence from her employers. One was an email, which said that complaints had been received regarding flight disruption, not passenger complaints.

10. The complainant also provided a witness statement from another member of staff, part of a grievance procedure outcome the complainant had raised against her employer and which referenced concerns raised by a pilot, details from the investigation, and a “notice of precautionary suspension from duty”. The latter included the following:

“It is alleged that on Flight […] you failed to deliver the inflight service in the Club Europe cabin to the required standards, resulting in complaints received from a number of customers affected by this. Additionally, it has been alleged that you used inappropriate language whilst talking to a colleague in the galley likely to have been heard by customer onboard.”

11. The details from the investigation provided by the complainant included the following quote from the complainant: “I do not come to work to be abused or screamed at just because passengers do not get their own way”. The witness statement from another member of staff said that the complainant had told the member of staff that she would not be working the following flight, and had blamed passengers for the flight.

12. The complainant also said that there was no evidence that she had posted “suggestive” videos or photographs of herself; she said that the article included a screenshot of a video to “try to make it look like something it is not” and that there was no suggestive or sexual intent behind any of the videos or photographs she had shared to social media. She also said that she had not captioned the video with: “if you wanna come to my hotel, all you have to do is holler at me”. The complainant provided the video in question; the video showed the complainant in front of a mirror, wearing her uniform. During the video, the complainant appeared to do a kissing face, looked at the camera, played with her hair, and panned the camera across her body. She then stuck her tongue out, before pulling a scarf around her neck towards her mid-section.

13. To support her position on this point, the complainant provided an undated copy of her employer’s social media guidelines. This included the following:

“Generally, when engaging with social media take care that you are not posting anything that could be prejudicial to the good name of the Company, bringing the company into disrepute. Keep a professional image which is consistent with that of the Company.”

14. The complainant also said that, by reporting that she had “accused” a British celebrity “of abusing her”, the article gave the impression that she had “made up” what had happened.

15. The complainant also said that the article breached Clause 2, as it included photographs of her which she said had been taken from her private Instagram account. She said she believed her account was private at the time the video was posted, and that her account was made private in 2023. She said that she had done so after having been identified in relation to the criminal case against the celebrity, and that at this time she had also changed her name on social media to a pseudonym. She also confirmed that the Instagram account had approximately 7,400 followers, and alleged that the newspaper had “hired someone to access the photos”.

16. The complainant also said that the article breached Clause 2 as it reported on a confidential investigation, and that publishing information about this investigation breached her privacy.

17. The complainant also said that by using her real name in the article, when she had changed her social media handle and had taken clear steps to distance herself from the criminal case, the publication had intruded into her private life.

18. The publication did not accept that the article breached the Code. It first noted that it was not in dispute that the complainant had been suspended. It also said that it was incorrect for the complainant to say that no passenger complaints had been received, as the suspension letter she had provided referenced such complaints: “It is alleged that on Flight […] you failed to deliver the inflight service in the Club Europe cabin to the required standards, resulting in complaints received from a number of customers affected by this.” It said that the “Club Europe cabin” was the flight’s business class, and therefore it could not be inaccurate to report that “[the complainant] was grounded after a flight to Malaga when business class passengers questioned her professionalism”.

19. The publication then said that the article did not report that the aircraft had been “grounded”; instead, it reported that the complainant had been grounded. Given the complainant had been suspended and therefore banned from flying, it did not accept that the article was inaccurate on this point.

20. Turning to the alleged inaccuracies regarding the “suggestive” photographs, the publication said that the article did not report that the complainant had been suspended due to such photographs. Rather, it reported that the complainant was "likely to be in trouble for posting suggestive videos of herself in her BA uniform”. It said that this was accurate, as “it is a breach of strict BA policy for staff to post pictures of them wearing staff uniforms online”. It also said that the organisation had confirmed to the newspaper, during pre-publication contact, “that managers were concerned internally by [the complainant’s] behaviour and lack of general professionalism”. However, the publication said that it had no record of this contact, though it said that its reporters had held conversations over the phone on 3 August 2024 and 24 August 2024 with senior officials within the airline’s press team.

21. The publication noted that, in the material that the complainant had provided to support her complaint, there was a reference to a pilot having raised concerns about her conduct. It did not, therefore, consider that it was inaccurate for the article to report that a “pilot was said to have been among BA staff worried about Leah’s alleged ‘shoddy performance’.”

22. The article, said the publication, clearly reported that a British celebrity had been “found guilty last September of racially aggravated common assault” against the complainant. It did not consider, therefore, that the article suggested the complainant had “made up” her accusation against the celebrity.

23. The publication said the photographs which accompanied the article had been provided to it by a source at the complainant’s employer; it had not improperly accessed any private social media profiles. It also said its position was that the complainant had posted the pictures and videos on an open social media account. It also provided further photographs and videos which it said the complainant had posted. These included: a photograph showing the complainant wearing her uniform, slightly bent at the waist and with one knee on a piece of furniture; one which had been posted to the complainant’s Instagram story, and which showed the complainant sitting in a cockpit, wearing her uniform and a pilot’s hat, with the words “I could put you in the mile high club, what’s up? Let’s take a trip” superimposed over the photograph; and three further photographs which showed the complainant in the cockpit. It said that the “hotel room” caption which was referenced in the article had appeared on an Instagram page called “Cabin Crew Boost”. As it had since been removed, the publication said it could not provide the original image.

24. At any rate, it said the photographs did not show anything inherently private, as they simply showed the complainant posing. It also said that whether or not a photograph is “suggestive” is necessarily subjective, but that it considered it was “amply justified” in describing the complainant’s social media content in this manner.

25. The complainant did not accept that her employer’s policies prevented staff from posting pictures of themselves in uniform. She said that the employer advised staff not to do so, but it was not a strict policy or contractual requirement. She also said that she had not posted anything to “Cabin Crew Boost”, and said that this was an Instagram hashtag that appeared to be dedicated to celebrating cabin crew. She said that someone else had reposted her old videos with this hashtag in appreciation, and not to sexualise her. She also said that the “holler at me” song referenced in one of the captions was “if you want to come to my hotel, all you have to do is holler at me, cause we’re having an after-party, check out at six in the morning” – which she said, was not sexualised. She said that, even if she had posted these lyrics – which she disputed having done – they had been taken out of context by the article. She also noted that the airline’s employees often shared each other’s photographs and re-shared them on social media, and that this was not unusual or inappropriate.

26. The complainant also said that the “mile high” lyric in one of her posts was not a sexual reference; it was taken from a song called “Planes” and she had used the song and lyric because she was on a plane and liked the song. She also said that the employer had confirmed to her that no one had spoken to the publication, and so she did not accept that any discussions had taken place between the reporter and BA staff prior to the article’s publication.

27. The publication disagreed with the complainant, and said that the airline’s policies covered photographs such as other ones posted by the complainant. It referred to the following policies:

BA/Cityflyer policy

• “Not posting anything that could be prejudicial to the good name of the company[…] keeping a professional image which is consistent with that of the Company.

• “Publishing anything relating to work duties requires written permission from line manager […] this includes photos and videos taken while on duty.”

BA Social Media policy

• “Application of the BA social media rules 'is at any time, including whilst downroute on duty'.

• “If you are identifiable as a BA colleague you are seen as a brand ambassador […] improper use of social media could damage BA's reputation and may be a breach of BA policies and procedures.

• “The following could make you directly or indirectly identifiable as a BA colleague […] sharing photos/video in BA uniform.

• “For crew: […] Don't post content that could be deemed or interpreted as […] sexualised content.”

28. The complainant said that the policies referenced by the publication were outdated, and that the airline did not “sack or discipline anyone who takes and posts any pictures or content in uniform or in a hotel room that’s not discreditable to the company”. She said that no one at the airline had raised the posts with her at any time while she worked there, which indicated that they did not breach any policies. She also said that what she considered to be similar photographs posted by cabin crew had not, as far as she was aware, been subject to any investigation. She provided a sample of such pictures to support her position.

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.

Findings of the Committee

29. The article reported that the complainant had been suspended “following ‘concern over her inflight behaviour’” and that “[the complainant] was grounded after a flight to Malaga when business class passengers questioned her professionalism”. It also reported that that “[c]olleagues were also alarmed over how she interacted with customers on last month’s flight and in other recent situations” and “sources say she is now the focus of an investigation after becoming ‘frustrated’ with passengers when they had pressed the assistance button above their seats.” It also said that a “pilot was said to have been among BA staff worried about Leah’s alleged ‘shoddy performance’.” The complainant had said that this was an inaccurate report of why she had been suspended, as the sole reason for her suspension was an alleged inability to complete the in-flight food service.

30. The Committee turned to the suspension letter provided by the complainant, which set out the allegations which had led to the suspension. The letter said that allegations had been made that the complainant had “failed to deliver the inflight service in the Club Europe cabin to the required standards, resulting in complaints received from a number of customers affected by this” and that she had used “inappropriate language whilst talking to a colleague in the galley likely to have been heard by customer onboard”. The Committee therefore considered that it was not inaccurate to report that “business class passengers had questioned her professionalism”, given that the suspension letter referred to complaints having been made by the passengers in question as a consequence of the complainant’s alleged “fail[ure] to deliver the inflight service […] to the required standards.”

31. The complainant had provided material, including a statement from a fellow staff member, which referenced the complainant blaming passengers for poor service, and a reference to a pilot having raised concerns with the airline about the complainant. In such circumstances, the Committee also did not consider that the article inaccurately reported that “[c]olleagues were also alarmed over how she interacted with customers on last month’s flight and in other recent situations” or that the “pilot was said to have been among BA staff worried about Leah’s alleged ‘shoddy performance’”.

32. Turning to the alleged claims made by “sources” that the complainant was “the focus of an investigation after becoming ‘frustrated’ with passengers when they had pressed the assistance button above their seats”, the Committee noted that the information provided by the complainant appeared to reference such frustration: the complainant had said “I do not come to work to be abused or screamed at just because passengers do not get their own way”; and a witness statement from another member of staff said that the complainant had told the member of staff that she would not be working the following flight, and had blamed passengers for the flight. Therefore, the information provided by the complainant appeared to tally with what the “sources” had told the publication.

33. For these reasons, the Committee considered that the article was not inaccurate, misleading, or distorted on the above points, and there was no breach of Clause 1.

34. The article did not report that the flight had been grounded or terminated early; rather, it reported that it was the complainant who had been “grounded”. Given that the complainant had been suspended, and it was not in dispute that a condition of her suspension was that she was not permitted to work on an aircraft for as long as the suspension lasted, the Committee did not consider that there was a breach of Clause 1 on this point.

35. The complainant disagreed that she had posted videos or photographs of herself which could be characterised as “suggestive”. The Committee noted that, to an extent, whether or not something is suggestive is subjective – what some people may considered suggestive could be considered innocuous by others. It also noted that it was not its role to decide on the complainant’s intention when posting the photographs and videos. Its role was to decide whether there was a sufficient basis for the publication to describe the complainant’s social media posts in this manner, and whether in doing so it complied with the terms of Clause 1 – which require that care is taken not to publish inaccurate, misleading, or distorted information.

36. The videos and photographs provided by the complainant showed the complainant making kissing faces, playing with her hair, panning the camera over her body, and posing by leaning forward. A series of pictures also showed her in the cockpit of a plane, with the words “I could put you in the mile high club, what’s up? Let’s take a trip”. The Committee noted the complainant’s position that neither this photograph, nor any other photo, had been purposefully posted for a provocative or suggestive purpose. However, the Committee considered that there was a basis for the publication to describe these videos and photographs as suggestive, given the body language in conjunction with, in one case, song lyrics which referenced sexual intercourse in an airplane. The Committee did not therefore consider that describing the complainant’s social media posts in the manner the article did was inaccurate, distorted or misleading, and there was no breach of Clause 1.

37. The Committee did also note the complainant’s position that she had not written the caption which accompanied one of the videos online; namely, the reference to meeting in a hotel room. As the post itself had been removed, the Committee was not in a position to resolve the discrepancy. However, it noted that the article did not report that the complainant had written the caption, and that the complainant had not said that the caption had been inaccurately reported, or that it had not accompanied a photograph of her which appeared online. The Committee, therefore, did not find a breach of Clause 1 on this point.

38. The article reported that the complainant was “likely to be in trouble for posting suggestive videos online of herself in her BA uniform”. The complainant said this inaccurately suggested that she had been suspended for the videos. The Committee accepted the publication’s position that the article did not definitively report that this was the reason for the complainant’s suspension, given the article reported the alleged reasons for the suspension separately, and this claim was reported with the qualifier that she was “likely” to be in trouble - thereby distinguishing it as conjecture on the part of the publication. However, to ensure that the article was not inaccurate, misleading, or distorted, the Committee considered that the publication was required to offer some factual basis for its conjecture that the complainant’s videos could mean that she would “be in trouble”, particularly given the article said that this was “likely”.

39. The publication had provided social media guidance from the complainant’s employer, which said that crew should not “post content that could be deemed or interpreted as […] sexualised content.” In addition, the guidance provided by the complainant said: “Generally, when engaging with social media take care that you are not posting anything that could be prejudicial to the good name of the Company, bringing the company into disrepute. Keep a professional image which is consistent with that of the Company.” The Committee considered this demonstrated that the company did have a policy that applied to social media of its employees, and that this extended to maintaining a “professional image”. It did not follow, therefore, as contended by the complainant, that the photographs could not have possibly contravened any company policy.

40. Taking all of the above into account, the Committee considered that the publication had taken care over the accuracy of its conjecture that the complainant was “likely to be in trouble” for posting the photographs; it had made this claim in reference to the airline’s social media policies and guidance, and had taken care to ensure that the claim was presented as its own conjecture. There was, therefore, no failure to take care over the accuracy of this claim, and there was no breach of Clause 1 (i) on this point.

41. The Committee next considered whether it was significantly inaccurate, misleading, or distorted to report that the complainant was “likely to be in trouble for posting suggestive videos online of herself in her BA uniform”. As noted above, the Committee considered this was clearly distinguished as its own conjecture. In addition, there was a basis for reporting this, where social media guidance from the airline specifically said that crew should not “post content that could be deemed or interpreted as […] sexualised content.” While the complainant stated that she had not posted with the intent of being provocative and suggestive, for the reasons noted above the Committee considered that there was a basis for interpreting her posts in this manner. For this reason, it did not consider that the article was significantly inaccurate, distorted, or misleading on this point, and there was no breach of Clause 1 (ii).

42. The article made clear that the celebrity had been “found guilty last September of racially aggravated common assault”. The Committee did not consider, therefore, that the article inaccurately reported that the complainant had “made up” her allegation against the celebrity, and there was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

43. The article included two images of the complainant. One was a still from a video, while the other was a photograph; both had been posted to the complainant’s social media page, which she said had been private since some time in 2023. The social media page in question had over 7000 followers.

44. Clause 2 makes clear that, when considering whether there has been an intrusion into someone’s private and family life, account should be taken of the extent to which the material is in the public domain. In this case, the complainant had over 7000 followers. In such circumstances, the Committee considered that the complainant could not claim to have a reasonable expectation of privacy over the images; she had chosen to share them on a social media profile with over 7000 individuals, not all of which could have been personally know to the complainant. In addition, the complainant had indicated during IPSO’s investigation that cabin crew often share and re-post images of one another, and that this was not unusual – the Committee considered this demonstrated that the complainant, while unhappy with the context in which the images had been shared, was aware that they could be shared more widely outside of her own social media following, and was not unhappy with this being done in general.

45. The Committee also considered the content of the images themselves. They showed the complainant posing for the camera, and she had not said that they showed her engaged in a private activity or that they revealed something private about her. Taking both content of the images and the manner in which the complainant had originally shared them into account, the Committee was satisfied that – in publishing the images – the article had not intruded into the complainant’s private life, nor shown the complainant in a location where she had a reasonable expectation of privacy. There was no breach of Clause 2 on this point.

46. The complainant had also alleged that the publication had paid someone to access her account to obtain the images. However, the Committee did not consider that there was sufficient evidence before it to demonstrate that this had occurred: the social media account in question was open to 7000 people, any of whom could have shared the photograph with the publication without having been paid to do so. In addition, the complainant appeared to accept that the video had been reposted by another individual using the Cabin Crew Boost hashtag, and had – at least for some amount of time – been viewable by anyone who searched the hashtag. The Committee did not therefore consider that there was a sufficient basis to find a breach of Clause 2 on this point.

47. The complainant had also said that the article breached Clause 2 as it reported details of an investigation into her conduct at work, and she considered this investigation private. The terms of Clause 2 make clear that it protects individuals from intrusion into their private and family life, home, physical and mental health, and correspondence, including digital communications. Therefore, the first question for the Committee was whether information about the investigation pertained to the complainant’s private and family life, home, health, or correspondence.

48. The article itself did not quote any correspondence either written by the complainant or which the complainant received as part of the investigation. In addition, the investigation – and the details about it reported in the article – related to the complainant’s professional life and conduct, rather than her private and family life. The article also did not include any details about the complainant’s home or health. In such circumstances, the Committee did not consider that there had been any intrusion as defined by the terms of Clause 2, and there was no breach of this Clause.

49. The complainant had also said that the use of her full name in the article under complaint, linking her with the legal case against the celebrity when she had taken steps to distance herself from the case – including changing her social media name – had intruded into her privacy. While the Committee understood the complainant no longer wished to associate herself with a case which had no doubt caused intense distress and upset, the complainant’s link with the case was established and in the public domain. While the Committee was sorry to hear of the distress caused, reporting on something which was already in the public domain did not represent an intrusion into the complainant’s privacy. There was no breach of Clause 2.

Conclusions

50. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

51. N/A

Date complaint received: 08/11/2024

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 21/02/2025