A regional daily’s reference to “scuba diving” in a story about a snorkeller’s inquest prompted his widow to complain to the press watchdog.

Fiona Thomson-Tur complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation over the Oxford Mail’s report of the inquest, the copy for which had been provided to the newspaper by a news agency.

The story, run under the headline ‘Scuba Horror: Dream holiday becomes a nightmare as man drowns while diving’, reported that Mrs Thomson-Tur’s husband had died while diving in the Seychelles.

It said that he had got into difficulties when his new mask “sprang a leak”, and had joked to his wife that he had experienced a similar problem on a previous holiday.

The article reported that Mrs Thomson-Tur had seen her husband “thrashing about and realised he was in serious trouble” and said that he had been found floating face up in the water.

Complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, Mrs Thomson-Tur said that her husband had been snorkelling, not diving, and that the leak in his mask had not happened before, and was not linked to his death.

She also said she had not been aware of her husband struggling in the water, and said that he had been floating face down.

The Mail said that the article had been provided by a reputable news agency, but accepted that the reference in the headline to scuba diving was inaccurate and changed this as soon as it received the complaint.

It added that the rest of the article was an accurate report of what had been heard at the inquest.

During the course of IPSO’s investigation, the Mail offered to remove the story from its website.

This resolved the matter to Mrs Thomson-Tur’s satisfaction, and therefore IPSO made no determination on whether there had been a breach of Code.

The full adjudication can be read here.