A man claimed a regional daily had inaccurately reported he was convicted of theft – despite the story in question being published several months before the conviction was actually quashed.

Gianni Accamo, who was jailed for four years after admitting conspiracy to commit fraud, went to the Independent Press Standards Organisation about a Bristol Post report published in February 2017, which stated he had pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit fraud in relation to an incident in London and had also been convicted after trial of theft in relation to an incident in Leeds.

Accamo told IPSO, in a complaint made in October last year, that the February story was inaccurate because the conviction for the Leeds incident was overturned in the months following its publication.

The February article covered a proceeds of crime hearing of five people, including Accamo, who had been ordered to pay almost £148,000 in compensation in total after being convicted of a number of theft and fraud offences.

The Post said that the gang had carried out “a string of elaborate diamond and jewellery frauds” in Bristol and across the country, adding the complainant had been caught by police in Nottingham along with the other defendants.

The article, which stated Accamo had been ordered to pay more than £26,000 in compensation and claimed he had made more than £6.5 million profit from his crimes, went on to state he had pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit fraud in relation to an incident in London, and had also been convicted after trial of theft in relation to an incident in Leeds.

Complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, Accamo told IPSO his theft conviction had been overturned several months after the article had been published, adding he had voluntarily gone to a police station in Cardiff, where he had been placed under house arrest, and had not been arrested in Nottingham.

He believed that inaccurately reporting the details of his arrest contributed to the misleading impression he believed the article gave regarding his involvement with the other individuals, who he said he had no connection to, and the other crimes outlined in the article, in which he had no involvement.

Accamo, pictured, further claimed he had not made £6.5m, as had been reported.

Denying a breach of Code, the Post said the information in the article was correct because the complainant’s conviction for theft had not yet been overturned, adding it had offered to edit the article to remove the reference to the theft conviction, and publish a footnote clarification, as soon as it had been made aware of this.

The Post provided a press release issued by the police at the time the five people had been convicted, which stated Accamo had been ordered to pay more than £26,000 as his benefit from the crime was estimated to be in excess of £6.5m.

The press release stated that the majority of the group were arrested in Nottingham and as the statement continued to then give details of Accamo’s involvement in the matter, the Post said it was fair for it to presume that the arrests included that of the complainant.

However, once the publication was made aware that the complainant had been arrested separately, it offered to make this clear in the footnote clarification offered.

IPSO found the Post had promptly offered to amend the original article after being told the theft conviction had been quashed, and that the story was not misleading in the way the complainant suggested.

The complaint was not upheld, and the full adjudication can be read here.