September 2015 hackinginquiry.org The Failure of IPSO After a year in operation, the ‘Independent Press Standards Organisation’ has let everyone down – except the newspapers A Hacked Off report The Failure of IPSO hackinginquiry.org L E A I D F P CONTENts F R Three years ago the Leveson E O S • S Christopher Ware 03 N 70 • O S Falsely accused of murder Inquiry found the country’s I YEARS T E A L F L - U R G Emily Brothers 07 E IPSO does nothing when biggest newspaper groups a paper defies it guilty of ‘wreaking havoc in Linda Pearson 09 Humiliated for an amazing achievement the lives of innocent people’ Traveller wrongly blamed for 11 two deaths The Ebola case that never happened 13 In response to shocking revelations of press The papers made bold promises: fabrication, distortion, bullying, intrusion and The Andy Miller case: the Mail 15 lawlessness, the Inquiry recommended a new allowed to flout the Code model of independent regulation capable of ‘ IPSO will be the toughest regulator in the western effectively enforcing a press code of conduct. world. It will provide real protection for ordinary people What IPSO is not 17 Vitally, the Inquiry ensured this would not restrict affected by media coverage. It will have tough powers freedom of expression. Its recommendations to crack down on wrong-doing to ensure some of the Suicide reporting 1 19 received overwhelming public support and – in things you heard about at the Leveson Inquiry can the form of a Royal Charter – were endorsed never happen again.’ Suicide reporting 2 21 by every party in Parliament. ‘ IPSO will have the power to impose fines of up to £1 The Devil Child 25 The owners of the Express, the Mail, the Mirror, million for systematic wrongdoing; ensure that editors Paying for child stories despite the Sun, the Telegraph and the Times refused to produce upfront corrections where they have got their welfare do what Leveson suggested. Instead they something wrong; have investigative powers, deployed revamped their discredited self-regulator, the by expert investigators, to call editors to account; be Identifying victims of sexual 27 Press Complaints Commission, giving it a new genuinely independent – with an independent Chair abuse & rape name: the Independent Press Standards and Board, and no serving editors anywhere in the Organisation (IPSO). IPSO’s failure to deliver prominent 29 regulatory system; cost the taxpayer or complainants corrections nothing as newspaper publishers will foot the bill.’ So, where do we go from here? 45 IPSO is now a year old. Has it lived up to those promises? Has IPSO raised press standards from their pre-Leveson levels? In these pages you can read the stories of those who know best – people who have found themselves written about in the press and people who took their cases to IPSO IPSO // 02 The Failure of IPSO - Christopher Ware hackinginquiry.org FALSELY ACCUSED OF MURDER 03 // IPSO IPSO // 04 The Failure of IPSO - Christopher Ware hackinginquiry.org IPSO, we were told, would ‘ensure some of Upon reading the British press reports online, FALSELY ACCUSED the things you heard about at the Leveson Christopher realised that many people who OF MURDER Inquiry can never happen again’. Some of knew him must have believed he was genuinely the most shocking evidence at that Inquiry suspected of murder and really had tried to concerned false accusations of murder against escape arrest. Meanwhile, journalists in the UK the parents of Madeleine McCann and against harassed his friends and family in an apparent Bristol schoolteacher Christopher Jefferies. It effort to find ‘dirt’ on him. When – still in shock has happened again, very soon, and on IPSO’s – Christopher reached Heathrow, so many watch. IPSO did nothing. reporters were waiting there that police had to smuggle him out of the airport. At home in Jersey he felt under siege, with reporters THE CORRECTION FACT posting letters through his family’s front door every day seeking interviews. • The ‘Brit’ in these stories could be Christopher Ware is an innocent man. You identified only as Christopher Ware, might think that – especially after the McCann a carpenter from Jersey and Jefferies cases – national newspapers would check their facts carefully and ensure • Christopher Ware killed no one, and their sources of information were sound before Thai authorities never even regarded making an accusation of murder. That is not him as a suspect what happened here. • He cooperated fully with police from the IPSO made no comment on the case and moment they informed him of the murders mounted no investigation. It was left to the victim to sue the Sun for libel: he won modest • He did not ‘flee’ the island by ferry or damages and a tiny correction. This is not the attempt to do so; when he eventually left, kind of ‘upfront correction’ we were told IPSO the police gave him a lift to the ferry would deliver, and it is nothing like enough to deter papers from doing the same again. • At the time these vile accusations against him were published he was in deep shock at the violent death of his closest friend HIS STORY “ What’s scary is that it can In 2014 Christopher Ware was beginning the happen to anyone and holiday of a lifetime with schoolfriend David there’s nothing to stop them. Miller on the Thai island of Koh Tao, when tragedy struck. David and another British It’s taken me and my family packpacker, Hannah Witheridge, were found almost a year to get our murdered on a beach. Thai police quickly lives back on track.” traced Christopher and sought his help in contacting the victims’ families and friends. Christopher Ware He naturally agreed. He was distraught and alone, thousands of miles from home. He was never named or treated as a suspect – on the contrary, Thai police brought him food and cigarettes and did their best to help him cope with the shock. Later, they drove him to the ferry so he could get a flight home. 05 // IPSO IPSO // 06 The Failure of IPSO - Emily Brother’s story - IPSO does nothing when a paper defies it hackinginquiry.org FACT “ IPSO initially ignored our “ The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative complaint that The Sun reference to an individual’s race, colour, further victimised me and religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.” Trans Media Watch. The being blind, Editors’ Code of Practice, clause 12 (i) final adjudication was buried and was printed without a headline. We asked IPSO HER STORY to enforce its own decision but it did nothing.” The willingness and ability of IPSO to protect how did she people from discrimination was tested in the Emily Brothers case of Emily Brothers, a Labour parliamentary candidate at the last election who is blind and Leveson condemned transgender. In December 2014, Rod Liddle the PCC as having used his Sun column to mock her, asking, under a photograph and headline,: ‘Being blind, how did “no powers to stipulate she know she was the wrong sex?’ She replied And then, when it came to fulfilling its obligation the form of resolution to Liddle the next day in the Independent: ‘When to publish the adjudication against it, the Sun then know she that might be offered he turns the lights out, does he not realise he is showed exactly what it thinks of IPSO. It buried by the newspaper a man?’ the article at the bottom of the page, without any headline – even though IPSO had explicitly said in question” With Emily’s endorsement, Trans Media there should be one. In other words, far from IPSO is just the same Watch (TMW), which acts for transgender being ‘upfront’, the paper did all it could to ensure people, complained to IPSO that Liddle’s no one would notice it or read it. IPSO claimed comment was a clear breach of Clause 12:i that it considered the first sentence of the article of the Code. Of course, even IPSO upheld to be its headline. Scan me to watch the the complaint (weirdly claiming that this “no- was the video of Emily telling brainer” was a landmark decision). But then The Editors’ Code says adjudications must be her story, or go to: IPSO, supposedly ‘the toughest regulator in published ‘with due prominence’. It also says www.hackinginquiry.org the western world’, feebly allowed the Sun to that the Code ‘must be honoured not only to make a mockery of the process. the letter but in the full spirit’. Though the Sun had defied its authority and mocked the Code, IPSO First, it IGNORED complaints by TMW that, while did nothing, refusing to act even when TMW the complaint was pending, Liddle and the Sun complained again. wrong sex? mocked and attacked them and Emily Brothers, publicly and privately. This was victimisation – Knowing you could be attacked again, and pure and simple; punishing a complainant in a get no effective redress even when you blatant attempt to intimidate them and to deter “succeed”, would YOU be tempted to bring others from making complaints. a complaint to IPSO? 07 // IPSO IPSO // 08 The Failure of IPSO - Linda Pearson - Humiliated for an amazing achievment hackinginquiry.org HER StoRY A grandmother from Yorkshire, Linda Pearson derogatory and defamatory headline.” IPSO, underwent weight-loss surgery that transformed characteristically, took the paper’s side. Too fat to WASH! her life. She lost 16 stone and was able to First it said that using the word “fat” was climb Snowden to raise money for charity.