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Editor must report to Commission after Code breaches

An editor has been told to report to the Press Complaints Commission after a series of breaches of the Code of Conduct in his newspaper.

The head teacher and chair of governors at Salusbury Primary School complained after a reporter spent a week at the school claiming to be interested in becoming a teacher.

The story was carried in the Evening Standard on March 21 this year.

The Commission found it in breach of Clause 1 of the Code of Practice, as it contained inaccuracies, was in breach of Clause 12 for identifying the victim of a sexual assault, Clause 11 through misrepresentation, and Clause 6 for talking to children in his pursuit of a story.

The school objected to the subterfuge, claiming there was no public interest to be served by the report.

The complaint said parents and staff were angry at the deceit and children could not understand why an adult in a trusted position had lied to them.

The article said the school was so short-staffed that its security system was under the charge of two 11-year-olds.

The Commission, while agreeing it was not in a position to make findings on disputed areas of fact, accepted also that the piece “was clearly presented as the journalist’s own recollection of his time at the school and was therefore likely to have been a partisan account”.

The adjudication stated: “The presence of the reporter in the school and the resulting article were significant breaches of the Code, which the newspaper should have sought to resolve at an early stage rather than seeking to justify.

“The Commission had no hesitation in upholding the complaint.

“In view of the number of serious breaches of the Code, the Commission asked the editor [Max Hastings] to review the application of the Code on his newspaper and report back to the Commission.”

Claims of the report being in the public interest were rejected by the Commission.

The Evening Standard said the school had been chosen “more or less at random” to produce a feature on the problems facing a London school and the teaching profession.

It wanted to highlight concerns over security, health, teachers’ pay and conditions, and claimed the fact a journalist could work there at all without security checks being made was, in itself, an issue.

The newspaper also stood by the accuracy of the piece, and added no questions were asked of children by the reporter that could not have been asked as an assistant teacher.

The newspaper accepted it may have erred in the case of the suspected victim of sexual assault but hoped that no damage had been caused.

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