A Parent and the Sunday World

The Press Ombudsman has decided to uphold a complaint from a parent made through her solicitor about an article in the Sunday World because it failed to observe the requirement of Principle 9 (Children) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines that publications should take particular care in presenting information about a child under the age of 16.

The article in question included a photograph of a young child and two adults, all of whose faces were pixelated. It reported that the child in question, who was not identified by name, was involved in a potentially criminal activity.

Because only the faces in the photograph were pixelated, the Press Ombudsman is satisfied that the photograph was identical to a very distinctive family photograph of the child with some of his relations, made available to him, and that the identity of the child had therefore been insufficiently concealed. The newspaper said that the photograph had been taken from the Bebo website and was therefore in the public domain. However, the Press Ombudsman is satisfied that any prior publication on such a site cannot, given the the obligations on member publications under Principle 9, the very serious allegations about the child contained in the article, and the age of the child concerned, justify the inevitable impact of its re-publication in the context of this serious and unverifiable allegation in a mass circulation newspaper. For this reason, and especially in the light of the substantial requirements of Principle 9 generally, there was an inadequate regard for the vulnerability of the child concerned, and the complaint under Principle 9 is therefore upheld.

As there was an irreconcilable conflict of evidence about whether or not the alleged incident had actually occurred, the Press Ombudsman was unable to make a decision on another complaint about the accuracy of the article under Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy).

8 March 2012