A regional daily has blamed human error after being rapped for wrongly reporting the dates of a fraudster’s crimes.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has upheld a complaint against the Plymouth Herald by convicted offender Paul Benwell, pictured, after his story was featured in a round-up of local fraud cases.

The story, published on 20 June this year, stated Benwell had “pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position between from 2014 until January last year”.

But, complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) and Clause 9 (Reporting of crime) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, the convict said he had pleaded guilty to fraud up to January 2018.

He also considered it unnecessary to report on historic cases, particularly where many of the people mentioned have served their sentences in full.

The Herald accepted it had, due to human error, incorrectly reported that Benwell pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position from 2014 until January last year.

The newspaper added that this was an oversight on its part, which it regretted.

Upon receipt of the direct complaint, it had amended the story accordingly the morning after and run a subsequent correction.

While IPSO found the mistake was due to human error, it took the view that the Herald had failed to take sufficient care not to publish inaccurate information, and found that there had been a breach of Clause 1 (i).

The Committee noted Benwell’s concerns over coverage of historic offences, but found this was not an issue which engaged the terms of Clause 9.

The complaint was upheld, and the full adjudication can be read here.