Rev. Guy Chave Cox and The Sunday Times

The Press Ombudsman has upheld a complaint by the Rev. Guy Chave-Cox that statements about him in an article in The Sunday Times on 29 August 2010 about property in Rosses Point, Co. Sligo, in which his wife has a beneficial interest, were in breach of Principles 1 (Truth and Accuracy), 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) and 4 (Respect for Rights) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines. A number of other complaints were not upheld.

Rev. Chave-Cox, who is an English clergyman, complained under Principle 1 that a number of statements in the article depicted him inaccurately as claiming ownership of the property concerned, and that other statements had in consequence inaccurately associated him with the article’s inferences about decisions and actions by solicitors acting for the Middleton Estate, the owners of the property, which had received national media attention.

The newspaper responded that it had been unable to contact the Middleton Estate until shortly before publication, and that when the complainant’s wife responded to its enquiry to the Estate it had, at very short notice, re-made the page concerned to insert a panel entitled “The estate’s case”, in order to highlight a number of points made by her. It offered the complainant the opportunity to contribute an article to be published as a right of reply, or to write a letter to the editor for publication, in either of which, it said, he could make the necessary corrections. It also maintained that the matter was complex and that correcting the record so long after the event would be of little value. The newspaper’s offer was not accepted by the complainant.

The article, which reported on a series of events connected with the property in Rosses Point to illustrate a general discussion of ground rents, directly associated the complainant with these events by stating that residents in Rosses Point had just received letters from an English-based couple claiming they owned the land on which many local houses were built, that the couple had issued a 28-day eviction notice to a Sligo resident, and that, as the Rev. Chave-Cox had walked through the neighbourhood of Rosses Point in the week before publication, he had seemed taken aback by the furious reaction of locals to his attempt to charge them rent for their land.

As the complainant provided uncontested evidence that he had no beneficial interest in the property concerned, that he had not sent out any letters in connection with the property, and that he had not been in Sligo the week previous to the article, as reported, these were all significant inaccuracies.

In its initial response to the complainant, the newspaper stated that it was “a minor error” not to have made a distinction between the complainant and his wife physically sending letters, and solicitors representing the Middleton Estate doing so. This, however, repeated the article’s mistaken assumption that the complainant had a legal interest in the property concerned. The significant inaccuracies referred to above were clear breaches of Principle 1 of the Code of Practice which should, under this Principle, have been addressed and remedied by the newspaper itself. In these circumstances, the newspaper’s suggestion that the complainant himself should be responsible for the correction of the significant inaccuracies it had published was inadequate . This complaint is therefore upheld. The newspaper’s contention that the matter was complex, and that correcting the record so long after the event would be of little value, was irrelevant in the context of the responsibilities placed on newspapers by the Code of Practice.

As the statements complained of under Principle 2 were comments about the complainant that were reported as fact, the complaint under this Principle is also upheld.

The complainant also maintained, under Principle 4, that a number of statements in the article affected his good name because the newspaper had not taken reasonable care in checking facts before publication. Although the newspaper had sent an email query to the Estate on the Thursday prior to publication, which was replied to by the complainant’s wife on the Saturday, the complainant was not contacted by the newspaper, nor was the Estate asked about any role the newspaper assumed he had played in relation to the property in question. The statement published on behalf of the Estate therefore had no relevance to the complaint subsequently made by Rev. Chave-Cox about references to him in the article. As there was no evidence that the newspaper had made any enquiries in relation to the material it proposed to publish about him, this complaint is also upheld.

Further complaints under Principles 3.1 and 3.3 (Fairness and Honesty), 5 (Privacy) and 8 (Prejudice) were not upheld.

The complainant maintained under Principle 3.1 that remarks made by him were quoted out of context. However, as there was no evidence that the newspaper did not strive for fairness and honesty in the procuring and publishing of the information complained about, as would be required for a breach of Principle 3.1, this part of the complaint is not upheld.

Rev. Chave-Cox also complained under Principle 3.3 that the behaviour of a reporter and a photographer had been a breach of the same Principle’s injunction against harassment. While the involvement of the journalist and the photographer was evidently persistent to a degree and unwelcome to the complainant, their behaviour did not, on the balance of the evidence, constitute harassment. These complaints are therefore not upheld.

Two complaints under Principle 5 were not upheld. One was that the publication of a photograph of the complainant was an unjustified invasion of his privacy. The fact that the complainant was publicly associated with his wife during the events being reported – events which concerned her directly - is sufficient to justify the publication of the photograph of both of them together. The second complaint under this Principle was that the photograph was in breach of the prohibition against taking photographs of individuals in private places without their consent unless justified by the public interest. Although there was evidence that Rev. Chave-Cox was on private property at the time the photograph was taken, private property is not synonymous with a private place, and it is reasonable to infer that a “private place,” in the context of the Code of Practice, means any place – public or private – in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. There was no persuasive evidence that the complainant was in such a place at the time the photograph was taken.

Finally, in relation to the complaint under Principle 8 that the article was intended or likely to cause grave offence or stir up hatred against Rev. Chave-Cox, there was no evidence linking the article concerned to the vituperative, racist, sectarian and anonymous comments posted on the web. In these circumstances, the newspaper cannot be held directly liable for the material published on the web. A newspaper would be held responsible for the publication of such material anonymously on the unregulated internet only in very rare and specific circumstances, This complaint is therefore also not upheld.

1 March 2011

The Newspaper appealed the decision of the Press Ombudsman to the Press Council of Ireland.