The News Shopper has been rapped for identifying the mother of a convicted criminal without consent.

The mother originally complained to the Press Complaints Commission that an article in the paper was inaccurate – a claim which was later rejected.

But the paper went on to publish her name and a copy of her letter to the PCC without permission, and when she complained about this the paper was found to be in the wrong.

The woman originally contacted the PCC on behalf of her son after the Kent newspaper published an article headlined “Vandals, yobs, thugs” together with a CCTV still of him labelled ‘guilty’, which told how CCTV was being used to catch criminals.

She complained that the article was likely to mislead readers as his conviction relating to football hooliganism was unrelated to the use of CCTV or the paper’s Shop A Yob campaign.

The complaint, under Clause 1 (Accuracy) was not upheld as an earlier article in the newspaper had made it clear his conviction was not connected to its campaign, and the same photo had been used without complaint and was therefore established in the public domain.

However it did uphold a complaint about a subsequent article headlined “We’re yobsmacked” which told of the woman’s original complaint and featured her letter to the Commission.

The newspaper said it believed that it was right to report on a complaint from a convicted criminal about the appearance of his photo in a newspaper, even if made via his mother, as a matter of public interest.

But the PCC agreed that the article was in breach of Clause 10 (i) of the code, which says the press must avoid identifying relatives or friends of persons convicted or accused of crime without their consent.

It said it was dismayed that the newspaper had published the complainant’s letter along with her partial address and her name without consent as she was an innocent relative deserving of the Code’s protection.

It also said the paper should not have published details while an investigation was ongoing and the Commission would not tolerate complainants being ridiculed in this manner.

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