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Newspaper says sorry to football clubs over rapist scout allegations

Gordon NeelyA daily newspaper has apologised to two football clubs after it inaccurately claimed a talent scout had been accused of raping and abusing boys while working for them.

The Daily Record apologised to Scottish sides Rangers FC and Hibernian FC after inaccurately reporting that Gordon Neely, left, had been accused of the abuse while working for both clubs in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Glasgow-based Record had admitted the error and published a correction on page four of the following day’s edition.

But the Independent Press Standards Organisation received eight complaints about the article, which reported on allegations of sexual abuse of young boys against Mr Neely and contained accounts from his alleged victims.

The Record said that the inclusion of the line complained of, which said he had “been accusing of raping and abusing boys while working as a scout for Rangers and Hibs in the 1980s and 90s”, was the result a genuine mistake made during the sub-editing process.

While accepting that this meant the article had contained an inaccuracy, the newspaper denied that this inaccuracy was significant in the context of a report on serious allegations surrounding Mr Neely, who died in 2014.

Following a complaint from Rangers, it had agreed to amend the online copy by removing the inaccurate reference to Rangers and Hibernian football clubs and had also published a correction in its Corrections and Complaints column on page four in the next day’s print edition.

Despite the apology, Rangers took the case to IPSO which upheld the complaint.

It found that given that the allegations were that Mr Neely had been able to use his position in football clubs to obtain access to young boys, an inaccuracy relating to the the identification of his employers at the time of the alleged offences meant there had been a failure to take care not to publish inaccurate information.

The full adjudication can be read here.