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IPSO rejects complaint after woman blames break-in attempts on newspaper

IPSO_logo_newA woman who claimed readers of a regional daily tried to break in to her home and steal her medication after it partially published her address has had her complaint dismissed by the press regulator.

Lia Stanton complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the News & Star, Carlisle, had breached Clause 3 (Privacy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in a story about her experiences with a rare condition called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

The story, which was run under the headline “I suffer 80 dislocations a day”, included the name of the street on which she lives and revealed that she uses “heavy pain relief”.

The complainant said that, while she had given an interview to the newspaper, she had not mentioned her use of pain relief, only that sufferers “tend to be on pain relief”.

She also said that she had specifically requested that her address not be included in the article because it was private information, and that as a result of the article she had experienced attempted break-ins to her home by people seeking to steal her medication.

The News & Star responded that it was sorry to learn of the attempted break-ins to the complainant’s home, but it did not believe that the article had intruded into her privacy.

The complainant had been happy to be interviewed at her home, and to pose for photographs in the street where she lives.

It provided the reporter’s notes of the interview to IPSO, which recorded that treatment is generally physiotherapy and pain relief.

The newspaper added that the complainant had not asked for her address to be omitted from the article, and it had not included her house number, in line with the newspaper’s general policy on the publication of addresses.

IPSO found no breach of Clause 3 on either count, and the full adjudication can be read here.

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  • September 4, 2015 at 10:03 am
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    And…….it’s another time waster. Seriously, I’m sure there are many people out there with very genuine grievances against the press. Especially those who have been given severe, unjustified kickings by some of our lovely national tabloids. I bet the people at IPSO would rather be looking into their cases than things like this.

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  • September 4, 2015 at 4:52 pm
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    If IPSO doesn’t do a better job of filtering out the daft, time wasting complaints, it’s soon going to be too busy to look into the ones it should be investigating.

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