A teacher who claimed that a regional newspaper invaded her privacy by naming her while she was ill has had her complaint thrown out by the press watchdog.

The Press Complaints Commission said that in this case it had been in the public interest for the newspaper to name the teacher, who was suffering from tuberculosis.

Her identity was also already in the public domain in the circulation area of The News, Portsmouth.

The News was cleared of intruding into her privacy.

She had complained to the Commission that an article headlined ‘Parents want to know how teacher got tuberculosis’, published in February, breached Clause 3 (Privacy) of the Code of Practice.

She also complained that the paper continued to identify her in further articles after it was contacted by her local education authority.

She complained that The News had unneccessarily named her in articles, without her consent, and by doing so had intruded into her private life.

But the paper claimed the outbreak had been extremely worrying for the local community, and it had been told in public announcements by relevant authorities that the source of the outbreak was a Year 6 teacher.

As there were only two Year 6 teachers in the school, and the complainant was the only one on sick leave, the paper said that hundreds of parents with children at the school already knew her identity and by naming the teacher it also ensured that other teachers at the school were not mistakenly identified as suffering from TB.

The Commission said that because the complainant was an adult in a position of responsibility at the school, and had been identified as the source of a TB outbreak among the pupils, it was in the public interest to name her.

It also agreed that because the identity of the teacher was already in the public domain it was unreasonable to restrict The News from publishing it.

It added that although people where she lived who were unconnected with the school may not know her identity, it was not practical to take into account such geographical distinctions.

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