The newspaper immediately accepted that it was at fault, explaining that the inclusion of the women's names was due to human error. Nonetheless, the Commission had no hesitation in upholding the complaint, which had been made by Hampshire police on behalf of the women. It described the newspaper's error in this case as "appalling" and decided to refer the terms of its adjudication to the Chief Executive of Trinity Mirror, the publisher of the newspaper, so that action could be taken to prevent this ever happening in the future.
Clause 11 (Victims of sexual assault) of the Editors' Code states:
The press must not identify victims of sexual assault or publish material likely to contribute to such identification unless there is adequate justification and they are legally free to do so.
To read the adjudication, which has been published in yesterday's edition of the newspaper, please click here.
The adjudication was made last year but only published today due to associated legal proceedings.
