Mr Sean Fitzgerald and the Sunday World

The Press Ombudsman has decided that there is insufficient evidence to allow him uphold a complaint by Mr Sean Fitzgerald that an article about him in the Sunday World on 29  September 2013 was in breach of Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

Mr Fitzgerald complained that an assertion in the article that he  had allowed a criminal acquaintance to use his (the complainant’s) family home as a bail address was untrue, and he provided copies of two bail documents which showed different addresses for the acquaintance concerned.

The paper responded that it had correspondence from the acquaintance concerned, sent from the complainant’s address.    

The Press Ombudsman noted that the most recent of the two bail applications furnished by  the complainant was from some nine years ago. In these circumstances, he decided that the evidence advanced by the complainant was insufficient to support a decision that the article breached Principle 1 of the Code of Practice.

10 February 2014