IPSO PRIVACY COMPLAINT UPHELD AGAINST DAILY STAR SUNDAY

FOLLOWING an article published on 26 November

2016 in the Daily Star Sunday, headlined “England ace [the complainant] cheated on sweetheart with me”, a man complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the newspaper had breached Clause

2 (Privacy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice and has required the Daily Star Sunday to publish this decision as a remedy to the breach.

The article reported that the complainant had told a woman that he was no longer in a relationship with his long-term partner and had engaged in an affair. The article described how the woman had become suspicious and had contacted his girlfriend on social media. It was illustrated with images of the text messages the complainant had exchanged with the woman, and her messages to his girlfriend.

The complainant said that the newspaper had published private information about his relationships and private life without his consent and in the absence of any public interest justification.

Before this article, there had been no coverage of his personal life, other than stories based on paparazzi photographs which had been taken without consent.

The woman’s right to express herself had not outweighed his right to privacy, particularly in circumstances where there was no public interest justification.

The newspaper denied that the article had included details of the sexual relationship between the complainant and the woman featured in the piece. It had merely reported that a relationship had been conducted in public for three months.

It said that the complainant’s right to privacy had not outweighed the woman’s right to express her views.

With regards to the text messages, the newspaper considered that they had revealed nothing of significance.

The Committee considered that the complainant’s text messages to the woman, which appeared to refer to an earlier sexual encounter, was information about which he had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

While the newspaper was able to rely on the woman’s right to freedom of expression as providing some justification for the publication of the article, this was, in the absence of any further public interest consideration, insufficient to justify the publication of the complainant’s private text messages, without his consent.

It had also not sought to argue that the complainant had previously discussed his private life publicly.

As the newspaper had failed to provide sufficient public interest justification for publishing the text messages, the complaint under Clause 2 was upheld.