Newcastle’s The Chronicle has been rapped by The Independent Press Standards Organisation after mistaking the son of a car crash victim for his dead father.
The error appeared in a story about a man who had been found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, and other driving offences, after crashing his car into a pub.
The article named Paul Collinson as the person who was killed alongside a photograph captioned: “Victim Paul Collinson.”
In fact the photograph showed his son, who had the same name but had not been involved in the accident. The deceased’s ex-wife, Lorna Collinson, complained to IPSO under clause one (accuracy) and clause four (intrusion into grief or shock) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.
The newspaper apologised and ran a correction the following day, but IPSO upheld the complaint under clause one and said the error represented a failure to take care not to publish inaccurate information.
However, IPSO also noted that the correction had been sufficiently prominent and prompt, and also failed to find grounds for a breach of clause four.
