The press watchdog has censured a news website after it confused two parks with the same name in a story.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has partially upheld a complaint against This Is Local London after it ran a story based on a social media post about a woman who was followed by a man “opposite Cator Park”.

But the story prompted a complaint from reader Charlotte Smith, who noted that the headline of the story reported that the woman had been chased “in Beckenham” while the quote from her social media had referred to “Cator Park”, and both the post and police statement included in the story had referred to Kidbrooke Park Road.

Complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, Ms Smith said there were two Cator Parks in London around five-and-a-half miles apart – one in Beckenham, and another on Kidbrooke Park Road in Kidbrooke, Greenwich.

Cator Park, Greenwich

She said that the site had confused the two places and this was of particular significance as Cator Park on Kidbrooke Park Road was close to where a murder had recently been committed, claiming omission of this reference amounted to a further inaccuracy.

Denying any breach of Code, the site said it had changed the headline from ‘Woman allegedly followed onto Lewisham bus and chased in Beckenham’ to ‘Woman allegedly followed onto Kidbrooke bus and chased’ after being contacted by Ms Smith.

It did not consider that confusing the two Cator Parks to be significantly misleading due to their proximity within South-East London, and said that the story served as a warning to people in that area.

IPSO found that both the social media post quoted in the story and the police statement were clear as to the location of the incident and to misreport this in the headline was a failure to take care not to publish inaccurate information.

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