Ms Alison Kelly and the Sunday World

The Press Ombudsman has decided to uphold a complaint made by Ms Alison Kelly that two articles published in the Sunday World on l0 and l7 November 2013 were in breach of Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

Ms  Kelly complained about statements in the articles that her family, or family members,  had paid back a debt owed by her late father to a named criminal, which she said were inaccurate.

The newspaper, which did not respond to  Ms Kelly’s original letter of complaint, said that by “family”  it had meant what it said was Ms Kelly’s late father’s  “extended crime family”, and not her specifically.  It said that if that was misleading it apologised to Ms Kelly, and offered to publish a correction and clarification to state that it had intended to refer, not to the complainant’s own family, but to her late father’s “extended crime family”.  This offer was declined by the complainant.

The Press Ombudsman decided to uphold this part of Ms Kelly’s complaint under Principle 1 of the Code because the error was significant, and the newspaper’s offer to publish a correction and clarification was insufficient as an offer of remedial action because it would have inappropriately qualified the correction of what it accepted had been an error on its part. 

There was insufficient evidence for the Press Ombudsman to make a decision about two other statements in the article relating to Ms Kelly’s late father, which she said breached Principles 1 and 2 of the Code.           

7 March 2014