A prison officer has been told that his local newspaper did nothing wrong by printing his full name, address and car registration number in a story.

He feared the inclusion of his personal details might put him and his family at risk.

But the information was read out in open court, and the court report in the Perthshire Advertiser was found not to have breached guidelines set out by the Press Complaints Commission.

The officer lodged a complaint with the Commission, but it was rejected because the information was already in the public domain.

The man argued that because his job regularly involved confronting inmates, the inclusion of personal details, which appeared in a court report relating to a car accident in which the complainant was the offending party, was a considerable security risk and had invaded his privacy in breach of Clause 3 (Privacy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

The information appeared in an article headlined ‘Injured pedestrian awarded damages’, published in the Perthshire Advertiser in February.

And although the complainant acknowledged that the details were read out in open court, he said that no member of the public had actually been there to hear them.

The Commission said that because the details were clearly in the public domain and no court restrictions were in place, it had to consider whether there were any exceptional reasons for interfering with the editor’s legal right to publish the information.

But as there was no evidence of any actual threat to the complainant it decided that this was not the case.

It added that it was reluctant to come to a decision that would effectively give greater rights to privacy to certain people on the basis of their occupation, and the complaint was rejected.

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