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Delayed court report 'misled readers' on assault case

A local newspaper has come under fire from a press watchdog after it delayed reporting the outcome of a court case.

The Brecon & Radnor Express published details of assault charges against Powys man George Millichamp, but did not report that he had been acquitted until several months after the case had ended.

He contacted the Press Complaints Commission after requests that the paper publish the outcome of the case – along with the name of the person he was acquitted of assaulting – failed.

The newspaper said the omission was a result of its reporter being absent from court because of illness, and the onus was then on the complainant to prove he had been acquitted before it would publish anything further.

When this evidence materialised some months later, during the Commission’s investigation into the case, the editor published a short paragraph stating that the complainant had been acquitted of a charge of assault in October 2004.

The man had denied the charge at his trial.

But the PCC said the paper’s failure to publish the verdict sooner had created an unnecessarily misleading impression about the complainant’s position in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code.

In upholding the complaint the PCC said it did not agree that the onus was entirely on the complainant to produce evidence that he had been acquitted of the charge.

It said the editor appeared to have made no effort to find out what the correct position was – despite the fact that the complainant had contacted the paper several times to point it out.