Complaint
This complaint relates to the coverage by the Irish Daily Mail of the final day of a court hearing relating to the Navan bus crash, and of the judge’s decision to withdraw the charges in the case from the jury. Mr Joe McArdle, Director of McArdles’ Test Centre Ltd., complained that a front page headline in the Irish Daily Mail on 30th May 2008 – “No Justice” – and a court report on page four on the same day, were in breach of Principles 1 (Truth and Accuracy) and 7 (Court Reporting) of the Code of Practice.
The newspaper said that the headline used was a reflection of a sense of frustration at the outcome of the case and at what it considered to be the failure of the prosecution to properly prepare its case, and was not a criticism of the judge or of his decision. It maintained that the article on page four was an accurate report of the judge’s remarks on the day in question. Nonetheless, it offered to publish a letter from the complainant that would be prominently displayed and in which he could put his side of the story, and to attach a note to the version of the article stored in their electronic archive explaining the complainant’s concerns about the original report. This offer was not acceptable to the complainant.
Decision
The headline “No Justice” was clearly part of an editorial comment on the fact that, as a result of the dismissal of the case, there was a sense of frustration and a belief locally that an injustice had been done to the families of the young people who had died in the bus crash. This sense of frustration was expressed by some local people interviewed by the newspaper and recorded in the article on page four.
The newspaper’s coverage of the final day of the court case on the same page was primarily a court report that included a summary of various elements of a very comprehensive and complex judicial decision. While Mr McArdle complained that this summary omitted what he believed to be some important parts of the judge’s decision, it is not necessary, or indeed possible, for a newspaper to report all the details of a lengthy and complex judgment. In this case the judge, during the course of a hearing on costs that took place the day after the publication of the article complained of, went into considerable detail to repeat and elaborate on the reasons for his decision to direct the jury to dismiss the charges because, he said, they had been misunderstood in some media reports that he had heard. Although the complainant argued that the judge’s remarks during the hearing on costs supported his complaint, these remarks were made on the day after the publication of the article about which he complained. The judge did not refer in his remarks on that day to the newspaper concerned, and the newspaper was not obliged, nor indeed was it in a position, to report on them.
However, given the complainant’s wish to publicise to the fullest possible extent the subsequent elaboration made by the judge of the reasons for his decision to dismiss the case, the newspaper’s offer to publish prominently a letter from him setting out his side of the story, and to add a note to the version of the article stored on its electronic archive explaining his concerns about the original report, accords fully with the spirit of the Code of Practice. No further action is therefore required.
