A weekly newspaper has been rapped after publishing a photo of a pupil’s face alongside a story about pornographic messages on a pre-school’s website.

Rebecca Elder complained to the Press Complaints Commission on behalf of the parents of a pupil at Fernhurst Pre-School about a front-page article in the Midhurst and Petworth Observer on 18 July, headlined “Pre-school child porn web shock”.

The article reported that pornographic messages and links to websites showing indecent images of children had been posted in the comments section of the pre-school’s website.

It was accompanied by an image of the homepage, which contained a photograph showing part of the face of a current pupil.

Mrs Elder complained that the photo of the pupil was in breach of Clause 6 (Children) of the Editors’ Code of Practice and this complaint was upheld by the PCC.

She also complained on behalf of the pre-school that the article had contained inaccurate and misleading information in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) but this was rejected by the Commission.

The child’s parents felt the use of the image had endangered her and the complainant noted that child protection agencies warn that using photos of children in stories of a sexual nature can make them vulnerable to “grooming”, while there was also a risk that such photos may be used inappropriately by others.

Local people had recognised the child from the image and the complainant said the child’s face should have been obscured and permission to use the image obtained.

In responding to the complaint, the Observer said it was impossible for people to identify the child from the image unless they had been previously made aware of it, as only her nose and mouth were partially visible and her gender was not obvious.

It said the child was in no more danger as a result of the article than other pupils pictured on the pre-school’s website and, while it was confident the child was not identifiable, it had decided to blur the child’s visible features when the story was published online.

But in its adjudication, the Commission said that the child was identifiable from the image because her features were visible.

It said there was no suggestion that the child was relevant to the issue and the juxtaposition of her image with a headline that referred to a “child porn web shock” had the clear potential to cause her embarrassment and upset.

The PCC said the republication of the image, without pixelation, in this context had the clear potential to intrude into her time at school in breach of Clause 6 and was an “error of judgement”.

However, the Commission said the newspaper had acted in good faith in pursing a story of local importance and by alerting the police and county council, it had performed a public service.

The complainant had also raised a number of concerns about the article’s accuracy, saying while she acknowledged that the paper had been told by police on the day before publication that they were “investigating”, she denied this amounted to a “police investigation”, which she considered wrongly implied the pre-school was being investigated.

She said there had been no police investigation into how the messages had been posted and police had merely recommended that the pre-school contact the Internet Watch Foundation.

Mrs Elder also said the school was not “privately run” but was run by a charitable trust.

The newspaper said it believed the article was fair and accurate and it had made repeated attempts to contact the pre-school before publication, without success. It also said the pre-school was not run by the council so was therefore privately run.

The Commission did not believe it was significantly misleading for the newspaper to have referred to a police investigation or for it to suggest that an investigation would relate to how the comments had been posted and it ruled it had not breached the accuracy clause.