Independent Press Standards Organisation upholds Clause 6 and Clause 2 complaint regarding a court report in which lep.co.uk reproduced information from a court register

A woman complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that lep.co.uk breached Clause 2 (Privacy) and Clause 6 (Children) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article published in October 2022.

The complaint was upheld, and IPSO required lep.co.uk to publish this adjudication to remedy the breach of the Code.

The article – which appeared online only – was a court round up of individuals who had been “convicted of crimes by local magistrates” at Preston Magistrates Court. The name of the complainant’s child was included in the article as an accomplice to another individual’s crime.

The complainant said that the article breached Clause 6, as it had identified her son – a child aged 15 at the time of the article’s publication – as an accomplice in a formal criminal charge made against an individual.

The complainant said that court reporting restrictions had been in place banning publication of her son’s name. She said this had caused significant distress to her son and her wider family, and that identifying him would mean that his peers would be aware of his crime; this, she said, could lead to further social isolation and harassment.

The complainant also said the article had breached Clause 2, as she considered that the article had intruded into her son’s private life.

The publication had used a court register to compile the report and said that no reporting restriction had been indicated in the entry relating to the charges that were the subject of the article.

IPSO noted that once the publication had become aware of the named individual’s age, it removed the reference promptly. However, the register had noted the complainant’s son’s age and the existence of reporting restrictions preventing his identification, 13 pages later in the document.

The terms of Clause 2 protect the rights of individuals to a private and family life free from unnecessary intrusion without consent. The existence of a reporting restriction meant that the complainant’s child had a reasonable expectation that this material – which related to a crime he was accomplice to – would not be published to the wider public. There was a breach of

Clause 2.

The terms of Clause 6 make clear that children’s time at school should not be subject to unnecessary intrusion as a result of press coverage. The publication had removed the

reference once it had been made aware of the child’s age two days after initial publication, however IPSO considered that revealing the complainant’s son’s identity in relation to a crime he had been an accomplice would have impacted his time at school. For this reason, there was a breach of Clause 6.

Date complaint received: 10/10/2023

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 23/05/2023