Press watchdogs have upheld complaints against two Midlands dailies for publishing a picture of distressed children being comforted by police following a bus crash.

The photograph, carried in both the Nottingham Evening Post and Leicester Mercury in December, showed a police officer tending youngsters following the incident in which their bus smashed into a railway bridge.

However the mother of one of the children in the photograph complained that the picture had been taken without her consent and showed her daughter in a “clear state of distress.”

The complainant also claimed that the appearance of the image had caused her daughter further upset.

Both newspapers said that they had considered whether or not to publish the photograph very carefully, but that ultimately, they believed it to be justified in the public interest.

The Mercury argued that publication would not have had an impact on the welfare of the children involved, as they were not from Leicester, while the Evening Post argued that the lack of any serious injuries or fatalities had been an important factor in its decision to go ahead and publish.

However in an adjudication published today, the Press Complaints Commission upheld the woman’s complaint under Clause 6 (Children) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

It said there was no doubt that the close-up photograph of the complainant’s daughter related to her welfare, and that it was not disputed that the image had been taken and published without parental consent, and as such there had been a breach of the Code.

Director Stephen Abell commented: “The Code of Practice makes clear that a child under 16 must not be interviewed or photographed on issues involving their own or another child’s welfare unless a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult consents.

“The Commission’s ruling sends an important reminder to editors of the exceptionally high standards which the Commission expects when reporting stories related to children.”

In its ruling, the Commission made clear that newspapers “are entitled to publish stories and pictures of serious road accidents, which take place in public and often have wide-reaching consequences”, and that it “did not wish to interfere unnecessarily” with the newspapers’ right to report the story.

However although it said there were occasions where the gravity of the circumstances can mean that pictures can be published in the public interest without consent, the Commission ruled that in this case the newspapers were “just the wrong side of the line.”