A sacked policeman and a convicted offender succeeded in getting news websites to remove online articles about them after complaining to the press watchdog.

Both Get West London and the Daily Record deleted stories from their respective sites, despite defending their publication prior to the Independent Press Standards Organisation launching investigations into the matters.

In removing the articles, GWL and the Record resolved the matters to the satisfaction of the respective complainants, meaning IPSO was not required to rule on the substance of the complaints.

Both titles had denied breaches of IPSO’s Editors’ Code of Practice before the investigations began.

The Get West London complaint came from an anonymous policeman who had been dismissed from his job after being found to have committed gross misconduct for honesty and integrity, as well as dishonourable conduct.

GWL reported that the complainant had been investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, following a complaint that he had begun a relationship with a woman he had previously investigated as part of a police operation.

He claimed the article was inaccurate because it repeated a number of claims about the alleged relationship from the IPCC statement on his case, which had now been removed by the organisation after he had challenged its accuracy.

GWL did not accept that it had breached the Code, saying it had accurately reported the IPCC press release on this matter, on which it was entitled to rely for information.

The site said it had no reason to believe, at the time of publication, that the press release may contain inaccuracies, but had offered to make amendments to the article, and add a footnote clarification, prior to deleting the article.

The full resolution statement can be read on the IPSO website here.

The complaint against the Record came from an anonymous man who had pleaded guilty to two charges under the Communications Act and been fined £2,000.

The Glasgow-based daily reported on its website that these charges related to messages he had sent to a former employee and included claims, attributed to an anonymous source, about the nature of the complainant’s conduct and the substance of the messages.

The man said claims about his conduct, and the substance of the messages he had allegedly sent, had not been heard in court, and did not form the basis of his conviction.

The Record maintained the article was accurate, although it did not have a reporter in court.

It said its journalist had interviewed the source, put the claims to the complainant prior to publication, and contacted the court for clarification of the precise charges he had pleaded guilty to.

The Record provided copies of the recordings of the conversation between the journalist and the court clerk, and the journalist’s conversation with the complainant.

The resolution statement can be found here.