The press watchdog has rapped a weekly newspaper after it presented a woman’s domestic abuse claims as fact and published information that could have identified her alleged abuser and their children.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has upheld a complaint against the Isle of Wight County Press by the woman’s husband after the newspaper reported he was an abuser and that this wife had told her story through a “chilling poem”.

IPSO sided with the man after the County Press published cllaims as fact including that the woman was a “survivor of horrendous domestic abuse”, that her husband had sold her for sex, tracked her movements, timed when she was permitted to go out and lied to her about the contents of a private medical letter without taking enough steps to test the claims.

The IWCP had published the woman’s story under a pseudonym, but IPSO further found personal and biographical details mentioned in its piece had the clear potential to identify the man and his children.

The man, who was unnamed in IPSO’s adjudication, had complained under Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 2 (Privacy) and Clause 6 (Children) of the Editors’ Code of Practice about the story.

He denied the allegations against him and provided copies of notifications of “no further action” letters received from the police after investigations of the woman’s claims.

The man also provided notes to IPSO from a child protection conference which repeated that many of the claims his wife made were considered to be false.

He said that both he and his children were identifiable from the information published in the story because it accurately described certain biographical details about him, his wife, the recent changes to their domestic circumstances and other information relating to their conduct and behaviour.

The man added the effect of this was exacerbated because he lives in a small town on the Isle of Wight, further claiming the story had intruded into his children’s time at school because another child had repeated the story’s allegations to one of them.

The man told IPSO his other children had also received comments and questions at school, and that one of them had said that friends’ parents do not allow their children to come to his home.

The IWCP denied a breach of Code, but deleted the online version of the story upon receipt of the complaint as a gesture of goodwill.

It said a journalist with previous experience of speaking to victims of domestic abuse had spoken at length with the woman after she had submitted a poem to the paper about the alleged abuse.

The journalist said the experiences of the woman matched what she had previously written about domestic abuse victims in that their partners were not convicted of crimes and the victims are often not believed.

The woman’s blog corresponded to what she had said during the interview and the IWCP had also unsuccssfully attempted to reach her counsellor.

The County Press said it was very difficult to “prove” deeply personal domestic situations, and that it was important for victims, even where the police or courts had not found in their favour, to be able to tell their story.

It said it had taken care to remove any information which could identify the man to a larger audience, such as the town they lived in, the number of children they had, and it had changed the woman’s name.

The paper added it had amended lines in the poem which specified the duration of the marriage and had named a specific location, while the fact it mentioned the man was in a position of power and had considerable finances did not identify him.

The IWCP believed the man could have been identified by either a fake social media account he had set up, or a relative who had posted comments under her own name on its website which referred to their familial relationship.

It said any comments directed towards his children from other pupils could not be demonstrated to have resulted from the story as opposed to other sources.

The man accepted he had created a fake social media profile and that a family member had commented on the article, but stated that he had been identified multiple times prior to these comments by people who were not aware of the details of his case.

IPSO made clear it is of significant public interest for the press to be able to report on domestic abuse, but found that given the nature of the allegations and the limited steps that the County Press had taken to test the claims, presenting them as fact when the woman was its sole source represented a failure to take care over the accuracy of the story.

The Committee further found the published personal and biographical details about the man had the clear potential to identify him and his children as the subjects of the article, and him as the subject of the allegations.

The information, including the disputed allegations, was plainly information about their private lives in respect of which they had a reasonable expectation of privacy and its publication was an unjustified intrusion.

IPSO added where the children were identifiable, this also represented an unnecessary intrusion into their time at school.

The IWCP was ordered to publish the terms of the adjudication on page three, where the original story haad appeared.

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