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Complainant Name: Clauses Noted: 1, 3 Publication: The Mail on Sunday Complaint: The Rt. Hon. David Maclean MP, the Conservative Party Chief Whip, complained to the Press Complaints Commission that an article, headlined "Top Tory who quizzed Boris over Petsy affair cheated on his own wife with Chief of Staff to Duncan Smith" published in The Mail on Sunday on 21 November 2004, was inaccurate and intrusive in breach of Clauses 1 (Accuracy) and 3 (Privacy) of the Code of Practice.
The complaint was not upheld. The article reported the claim that the complainant had previously had an affair with a civil servant. The newspaper linked its account of this relationship – which allegedly occurred in the 1990s – to more recent allegations of an affair between Conservative MP Boris Johnson and Petronella Wyatt. Mr Johnson had been dismissed from his position as party arts spokesman after allegations that he had lied about the affair. The complainant contended that there was no justification for what he regarded as an intrusion into his private life. He also denied that he had ‘quizzed’ Boris Johnson over his affair. The newspaper said that the affair was in the public domain. It had twice published – in July and December 2002 – the fact that the complainant had had an affair with the civil servant. On neither occasion was there a complaint. The newspaper then argued that, notwithstanding the fact that the information was in the public domain, there was a public interest in referring to it in the context of the sacking of Boris Johnson. This was chiefly because the complainant’s own domestic circumstances were the subject of legitimate scrutiny in light of his involvement in the Mr Johnson’s dismissal. The newspaper was satisfied that the complainant had spoken to Mr Johnson about the affair. Its editor had a shorthand note of a conversation with Michael Howard’s press secretary in which it was claimed that a meeting between the complainant and Mr Johnson had taken place in which Mr Johnson had denied his affair. It was after this conversation that Mr Johnson was sacked. The newspaper’s claims about the complainant’s role in Mr Johnson’s sacking were accurate, and publication of details of the complainant’s own affair was justifiable. The newspaper advanced further public interest arguments in favour of publication. The complainant had had the affair while serving as a minister in a government publicly committed to family values. He had then refused to accept a Cabinet position in that government, which some people speculated was because of the alleged affair. The newspaper considered that readers were entitled to be informed of this, whether it was topical or not. The newspaper also pointed to the fact that the Conservative party’s website still misleadingly claimed that the complainant was living with his wife, which was clearly not the case. It could suggest other factors that reinforced its argument that the story served the public interest: people were entitled to know that a man in public office was capable of deception and double standards; a secret affair could leave a politician open to blackmail; voters were entitled to know of details that might affect a politician’s decision-making; newspapers were entitled to report official relationships, and should therefore have a right to discuss unofficial ones; and there was a general public interest in a free press being allowed to report on the personal indiscretions of public figures. The complainant denied that the article served the public interest. The allegations levelled in the article – which he neither confirmed nor denied – related to incidents several years old. There was no possible public interest in their publication at the current time, some ten years after the event. He had announced the end of his marriage in 2002 through his local newspaper so as to inform his constituents, who were therefore aware of his marital status. There had been no inconsistency between his private behaviour and his public actions for the newspaper to expose, not least because Mr Johnson had not been sacked because of his affair but for having lied to the media. There were therefore no ‘double standards’ for the newspaper to expose. His only involvement in the case had been to point out to Boris Johnson the importance of telling the truth to the media: he had not ‘quizzed’ him about the affair. He suggested that the full transcript of the editor’s conversation with Michael Howard’s press secretary would make this clear. Finally, he did not consider that two small diary pieces published over two years previously placed the matter into the public domain to a sufficient degree to justify publication of the story. Decision: Adjudication: Report: << Go Back |
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