A weekly newspaper has been cleared of inaccuracy in a court report detailing a dispute between an IT expert and the telephone directory company Yell.

The IT man complained to the Press Complaints Commission claiming the Kidderminster Shuttle article was wrong in several respects, contravening Clause 1 of the editors’ Code of Practice. He also alleged a breach of Clause 2, his opportunity to a reply in the paper.

There were two articles surrounding the case, “Phone firm takes on IT dispute man”, and “Datascraping dispute settled”.

The first reported on the dispute, and how Anthony Butcher had been accused of copying Yell databases, then using them for his own websites.

He said the article was wrong to say he had unlawfully used the information, and claimed the paper knew the case had been settled out of court before it published the first piece.

He claimed the second article failed to clear up the inaccuracies in the first, and compounded them by stating he contributed towards Yell’s legal fees and damages, also stating he had admitted to acting unlawfully.

The Shuttle, however, said the dispute had not been formally concluded before publication of the first article.

It added that the particulars of Yell’s claim was the source of the accusations listed in the article, which was itself an accurate summary of the case.

It said the follow-up was also accurate, in publishing the complainant’s denials, and taking the information on costs and damages from the official court Order of Judgement.

The Press Complaints Commission rejected Anthony Butcher’s complaint, saying the coverage initially made clear the claims against him were an allegation, with any possible confusion being answered in the second article, which made it clear that “Mr Butcher denied that he had ever made commercial use of any of the Yell data that he had downloaded”.

It added that any coverage of legal proceedings would have to be a summary of the case and not include every detail.

The complainant’s objections reflected interpretation rather than factual inaccuracy, with readers unlikely to have been misled into thinking the behaviour admitted by the complainant had been found unlawful by a court, because the matter was settled out of court.

Since there was no breach of Clause 1, there was no breach of Clause 2.

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