A daily newspaper has been cleared of wrongdoing after a columnist mentioned a dead man’s alleged links to a gang.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has backed the Irish News over a comment piece it published following the death of Willie Frazer, who was described as a high-profile “loyalist victims campaigner”.

The column prompted a complaint to IPSO by Gordon Murdock, a cousin of Mr Frazer, who claimed the column was inaccurate and had caused his family much distress.

But IPSO found in favour of the Belfast-based News after it provided evidence backing up the claims made in the piece.

The piece explained Mr Frazer, pictured, had been a controversial figure during his lifetime, and caused offence to people he disagreed with, but the columnist argued that this should not undermine respect for the fact that he and his family had suffered as a result of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Mr Murdock said it was not the case that any of Mr Frazer’s relatives who had been murdered had been publicly linked to the Glenanne Gang, as was claimed in the column, and provided IPSO with a document from the Historical Enquiries Team in 2012 which stated that it had found no evidence that Willie Frazer’s father was a member of, or otherwise associated with, any paramilitary organisation.

He also disputed that Mr Frazer himself had been involved in any paramilitary activity, although he acknowledged that claims to this effect had been published following his death.

The News apologised for any distress caused but did not accept that the column was inaccurate, saying two Northern Irish publications had reported in 2017 that Mr Frazer’s father Bertie, who was murdered, had been involved in the Glennane Gang, based on claims made in a Ministry of Defence document.

The News acknowledged that this link was in dispute, but said it was not inaccurate to report that the link had been “well publicised”.

It added that the Glenanne Gang was essentially the Glenanne section of the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force, which it said Willie Frazer had been linked to in a BBC documentary in October of last year, and therefore it said it was not misleading to include him as one of the people with “well publicised” links to the Glenanne Gang.

The News said it had been sympathetic to Mr Frazer and his family, and said it had tried to resolve Mr Murdock’s concerns before he had gone to IPSO by removing the statement under complaint from the online article and publishing a clarification after he had spoken to its deputy news editor on the phone.

Notwithstanding the family’s position regarding the credibility of the allegations, IPSO found there was no failure to take care in reporting that some of either Willie Frazer’s family who had been murdered, or Willie Frazer himself, had had “well publicised” links to the Glenanne Gang.

In addition, although the document from the Historical Enquiries Team made clear that it had not found any evidence of Bertie Frazer being a member of a paramilitary organisation, this did not contradict the fact that claims had previously been made linking Bertie Frazer to the Glenanne Gang.

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