A local news website has been rapped by the press watchdog over a user-generated comment alleging a “serious crime” against a man who had previously been convicted of assault.

A court report on the case of Ryan Edwards was carried on gazette-news.co.uk, the online arm of the Newsquest daily the Colchester Gazette, following his conviction at Colchester Magistrates Court.

Headlined “Man, 40, spared jail despite assaulting pregnant woman”, it reported that Mr Edwards had “denied assaulting the woman and child” but was “found guilty”.

There was a user comment section underneath the story where another, separate serious criminal allegation had been made against the complainant by a reader, which referred to the complainant by name.

Complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editor’s Code, Mr Edwards said that the report was inaccurate because he had never “admitted” to assaulting the woman or child – he said that he had been found guilty of a non-contact assault.

He said the assault of which he had been found guilty was “non-contact” by way of an “unintentional push”, and that the word “assault” was misleading as it implied he had physically beaten the woman and child.

Mr Edwards also said the article breached Clause 1 because the serious criminal accusation made in the user-generated comment was inaccurate.

The complainant sent an email to the publication reporting the comment, but it remained online for nearly three weeks after this.

The website acknowledged there was an error in the text of the article that suggested that the complainant had admitted to the offence, and subsequently offered to publish a correction to this effect.

It also accepted that that the user-generated comment was unsubstantiated, but because the complaint had been sent via email late at night rather via the “report comment” section on the website, it had been missed.

The comment was eventually deleted after IPSO made the publication aware of it, and offered to add a paragraph added to the previous proposed correction.

This read: “Furthermore, a user comment left on this article alleged Mr Edwards had committed a more serious crime. This comment was unsubstantiated, and it has now been deleted.”

It was accepted by the publication that it was inaccurate to state that the complainant had admitted to the original offence, and there was therefore a breach of Clause 1 on this point.

In relation to the user comment, the Code Committee acknowledged that due to human error, and the complainant reporting the comment outside of the usual pathway, the initial complaint regarding the comment had been missed by the publication.

However where the comment made an unsubstantiated allegation of a serious crime, that formed no part of the complainant’s court case, it was inaccurate and the publication’s failure to remove this represented a failure to take care not to publish inaccurate information in breach of Clause 1(i).

The Committee then considered whether the remedial action taken by the publication in relation to both the above breaches was sufficient to avoid a breach of Clause 1(ii), which states that inaccuracies must be corrected promptly.

In relation both to the inaccurate claim that the complainant had “admitted” the assault, and the user comment, the Committee ruled that the publication had not responded sufficiently promptly, and that there was therefore a breach of Cloause 1 (ii).

However it considered that the publication of the proposed corrections would fulfil the website’s obligations under the terms of the clause.

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