The Evening Standard has been cleared of breaching the harassment clause of the newspapers’ Code of Practice after a complaint about the behaviour of a reporter and a photographer to the Press Complaints Commission.

The complaint came from the head teacher of Kent College, Pembury, who said the pair had attended a royal visit when not invited and then failed to leave when asked to do so.

Head Barbara Crompton said that when the reporter called for details of the visit, she was told that the Press Association would arrange for reports and photographs to be syndicated and that Evening Standard staff should not attend.

The complainant added that on the evening of the event a photographer and reporter from the Evening Standard had been present at the school and had not left at 8.20pm when instructed to do so. She said they had left after midnight, having opened a gate and driven their car into a field, only to get stuck in the mud. The school’s site manager had had to tow them out.

Miss Crompton said the failure of the reporter and photographer to leave when asked to do so constituted an attempt to obtain information or pictures through harassment and persistent pursuit.

But the newspaper denied its staff had breached the Code of Practice.

The Standard’s version of events said the reporter arrived at the school and was told to wait in her car until she could liaise with the Press Association reporter covering the event.

This she did – she had not been told to leave at 8.20pm. Later, when she and the photographer left the school they drove through a gate having been told it was the way out and got stuck in a field, from which they had to be towed out by the site manager. There was no harassment of staff.

The newspaper said that its staff had not been told that they must leave after the event interval and that they had only become stuck in the mud because they had inadvertently taken a wrong path to what they thought was the school’s exit.

Dismissing the complaint, the PCC explained how Clause 4 (Harassment) of the Code states that ‘journalists and photographers must neither obtain nor seek to obtain information or pictures through intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit’.

The adjudication said: “In this case, while it was clear that there were differing accounts of what had happened at the school on the night in question – and while the school clearly considered that the reporter and photographer had outstayed their welcome – there was no evidence that anybody had been harassed or persistently pursued in breach of the Code.

“There had been no complaint that any member of the school’s staff had been photographed in a private place or that the reporter had approached anyone having been asked to desist.

“Sitting in a car at a school for a few hours while an event, to which other members of the press had been invited and which members of the Royal Family were attending, was not behaviour that the Commission could consider breached the Code of Practice.”

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