The press watchdog has rapped a city news website for claiming a couple fed their children “nothing but ready meals”.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has upheld a complaint from Nicola and Kevin Gomersall after Leeds Live made the claim in a story about their struggles coping with the cost-of-living crisis.

IPSO also backed the Gomersalls over another dispute about the same story, finding Leeds Live had wrongly suggested their children were not in school when they otherwise should be.

The Reach plc-owned title was ordered to publish corrections on both its website and Facebook page following the ruling.

Kevin and Nicola Gomersall

Complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, the Gomersalls took issue with the headline ‘Struggling Leeds couple forced to feed kids nothing but ready meals and sell off possessions’, as well as a claim in the same piece that their children played “computer and games consoles” throughout the day “as they’re off school”.

The couple confirmed the children were not out of school and playing on consoles as the story suggested.

Leeds Live did not accept any breach of Code and said the story was an accurate report of the interview with the couple.

It provided an audio recording of the interview to IPSO to demonstrate this, as well as the reporter’s notes.

However, Leeds Live did amend the headline to ‘Struggling Leeds couple forced to feed kids ready meals and sell off possessions’ as a gesture of goodwill.

IPSO found the audio recording of the interview did not support this assertion that the couple had been “forced to feed [their] kids nothing but ready meals”.

This consequently gave the clear and misleading impression that their children’s diet consisted solely of this particular category of food.

In the audio recording, Mr Gomersall told the reporter “when the kids are off school” they have “all the computers going” and as a consequence of this the “electric [was] through the roof”.

The Committee found the story had misreported the quotation, substituting “as” for “when” and in so doing wrongly suggested that the Gomersalls’ children were not in school when they otherwise should be and playing on computer consoles during that time.

In IPSO’s view, the suggestion that the children were not at school when they should be was significant and required correction.

A number of other complaints by the Gomersalls regarding the accuracy of the piece were dismissed by the Committee.

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