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PCC upholds child witness complaint

A local paper has been rapped for identifying a child witness and potentially putting her in danger.

The Press Complaints Commission ruled that although the Eastbourne edition of The Argus had acted properly by speaking to the girl’s mother, it did not appear that she had been told exactly what was to be published.

An article headlined ‘Terror of girl in kidnap bid’ was published in the paper on May 10 2002.

The girl’s father complained to the PCC that the article identified the 12-year-old, who had been the victim of, and witness to, a crime, without consent in breach of Clause 10 of the Code of Practice, which covers reporting of crime.

The complaint was upheld.

The complainant said that the man who was responsible for the attempted kidnap had not been caught and he had warned the girls that if they went to the police he would come and ‘get them’.

When the incident was reported in The Argus the complainant’s daughter was identified by name and her partial address included. The complainant believed that his daughter should have been protected from potential future danger.

The newspaper said that it had only published the details after a reporter had spoken to the complainant’s wife on the phone, but she said later that she would not have agreed to the details being published because of the seriousness of the situation.

She said she knew an article was to be written but had not realised that she was being ‘interviewed’ and had not been told her family address would be included in any article.

The commission said that in this case, while the complainant’s wife had spoken to the journalist, the inclusion of the daughter’s full name and partial address potentially put her in danger and it did not, taking into account the particular circumstances of this case, consider that the newspaper had paid sufficient regard to her position.

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