The press watchdog has rapped three regional sister titles after a widower’s complaint over their coverage of his wife’s death.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has upheld complaints by Antony Higginson against Cheshire Live, the Liverpool Echo and the Manchester Evening News after they wrongly reported that a paracetamol overdose had not contributed to his wife Laura’s death.

The story run by the three Reach plc titles reported that Mrs Higginson had been given “too much paracetamol” when admitted to hospital with sickness and pneumonia, and had “died two weeks later from multiple-organ failure, sepsis and Gitleman’s syndrome”.

It then stated that the Crown Prosecution Service had found the overdose “did not contribute to her death”.

Laura and Antony Higginson

Complaining under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, Mr Higginson told IPSO the story misrepresented the findings of the CPS.

He denied that the CPS had found the overdose of paracetamol did not contribute to his wife’s death, but had instead concluded that it could not bring charges for gross negligence manslaughter against the hospital trust.

The Reach titles accepted the stories were inaccurate on this point and said they apologised to him, via e-mail, for the error and distress caused on 20 October last year – the day after it was published by the Echo and Cheshire Live, and the same day it was published by the MEN.

They also published a correction, but Mr Higginson considered that the wording of the correction should include an apology.

To resolve the matter, he requested a meeting with senior editors and a full explanation for the error, the publication of an apology and the promise of additional coverage for the forthcoming inquest and beyond.

In response, Reach confirmed that it would be happy to report any significant future developments in the case and added the footnote correction was updated on 15 November 2022 to include an apology – 26 days after the publication had first been notified of the error, and 6 days into IPSO’s investigation.

Mt Higginson did not consider that this was sufficient to resolve his complaint, telling IPSO he felt “gaslit” by the titles and had not been provided with a satisfactory explanation for the error.

IPSO found it was accepted by both parties that the story misrepresented the findings of the CPS and had incorrectly reported that it had made a specific ruling on the circumstances of Mrs Higginson’s death.

Given the sensitivity of the subject matter and where a full inquest was yet to conclude on the circumstances of the death and the possible contributing causes, this represented a failure to take care over the accuracy of the story.

While the titles had acted promptly in terms of the published corrections, the Committee did not consider the subsequent apology was sufficiently prompt.

The complaints were upheld, and the full adjudication can be read here.