A regional daily has apologised after illustrating a story about a violent sex offender with a picture of an innocent man.
The Oxford Mail reported on Friday that Daniel Rodriguez admitted four firearms offences following a 12-hour stand-off with police, having previously admitted three counts of rape and one of sexual assault.
However it initially illustrated the story with an image of another man of a similar name that had been wrongly supplied by Thames Valley Police.
The paper has since added the correct photograph to the story along with an apology.
It states: “Thames Valley Police supplied us with a picture today saying it was Daniel Rodriguez that was published in good faith with this story.
“In fact it was a different man called Daniel Rodriguez-Lay, 32, and we wish to state categorically the image published earlier today was not of the defendant and apologise sincerely to Mr Rodriguez-Lay. The picture attached to this story now is the correct man.”
The BBC website also carried the picture of Mr Rodriguez-Lay and has since published a correction.
Thames Valley Police has also apologised unreservedly for the error.
It said it is now reviewing its procedures in respect of the identification and distribution of offenders’ photographs.
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It’s all very well blaming the police for giving them the wrong photo but how about actually having a reporter in court to cover the story who can then ID the pic before it goes in the paper?
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Wonder if someone is in for the chop for this?
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Agree with DS. Surely the court reporter should have been able to identify that this innocent man was being wrongly pictured in the Oxford Mail.
An apology isn’t all this poor guy should get – a significant damages pay-out too I would say.
Poor show Oxford Mail.
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er, supposing the copy came from an agency?
You can’t shoot the messenger for a police press office cock-up.
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Oh, come on, DS and Old hack. Even when reporters did go to court more often this sort of thing, although rare, still happened. It’s a simple case of ‘there but for the grace of God…’
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Well it’s not the first time this bloke has been in the news…. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267620/Drug-addict-raid-Lady-Mindbender-spat-face-opportunity-lifetime.html
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Oh yeh because of course I forgot that journalists don’t have eyes!
Bluestringer – a case this big would not have been from an agency – they would have sent a reporter to court surely?
Therefore, said journalist should have had eyes in his head and the thought of checking his front page news story before it went to press.
Sorry, but there are more to blame than just the police press office – although I concede they were mainly responsible.
A very shoddy affair all round – press office, reporter, sub editor and ultimately, editor, should be ashamed.
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In my experience, old Hack, the economics of regional newspapers dictate you will very often pay a trusted local news agency or freelancer to cover court instead of tying up staff reporters for days at a time.
So the chances of a staffer knowing if the photograph of a convicted criminal is okay are obviously reduced.
We trust the police to give correct information for countless stories.
I don’t see how providing the correct image is any different?
If their PR team get it wrong, they should carry the can – not the newspaper.
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