Adjudication No. 13 (June 1977) [1977] APC 8

Adjudication No. 13 (June 1977)

The Press Council received a complaint on behalf of a prisoner named Leith Ratten, who is serving a life sentence in jail, about articles in the Sunday Observer (Melbourne) of August 8, 1976, one on the. front page and the other on inside pages.

The first page was in the nature of an introduction to the story on the inside pages, but so far as it related to Ratten it was much more sensational than the main article.

With bold headlines the first page alleged that Ratten and another prisoner named O'Meally had been lured by a "weird church" and planned to join a "God cult", a "strange new God sect", joining others "to spread the word through 'talking in tongues' and the 'laying on of hands' ".

It said that a reporter had probed the sect and "its bizarre workings" and directed attention to the main report..

The latter was headed "O'Meally, Ratten head for a church job" and connected them with a former prisoner, one Ryder whom it described as "bankrobber turned evangelist", in connection with the "God cult", which it identified with the Charismatic Renewal Movement.

The report went on to say that O'Meally and Ratten were training to be preachers and that lay preaching would give them a ready-made occupation when they should come out of jail.

The complainant and Ratten's father strongly denied that Ratten had any connection with Ryder or with any "God cult" or "laying on of hands" or any lay preaching movement. Ratten's father had protested to the Sunday Observer soon after publication of the report, but had received no acknowledgment or reply to his letter.

The Press Council, however, received a reply on behalf of the Editor of the Sunday Observer, stating that the information about the involvement of Ratten and O'Meally in a religious sect had come by telephone from two former Pentridge prisoners after the paper had published a story about Ryder having become an evangelist.

It was said that the paper thought there had been no reason to disbelieve the ex-prisoners whose reports tallied, although the second "obviously" did not know the tint. It was further said that attempts had been made roger more information on Ratten and O'Meally from the Social Welfare Department and Pentridge Jail, but without success.

The Sunday Observer did not suggest that any attempt was made to check the veracity of the two ex-prisoners who supplied the information about Ratten or to check the information by enquiry from any relatives or other persons likely to know whether Ratten had in fact formed any connection with the alleged cult.

It can only be said that the paper's action in regard to Ratten was taken on information so slender that the publication of the report so far as it related to him had no reasonable justification at all.

The paper contended that there was nothing in its report that was detrimental to Ratten. Obviously, however, it could not have failed to be hurtful both to Ratten and his family to have him represented as a person who had proved susceptible,, to the luring of a "weird church", described as a "strange new God sect of 'bizarre workings", and especially to have him represented as "heading for a church job" and training to be a preacher and thereby getting a ready-made occupation when he should come out o flail.

The report resurrected, with a new twist, the fact of Ratten's incarceration for the shooting of his wife and was a contemptible exploitation of a convicted prisoner's plight. This kind of journalism tends to bring the freedom of the Press into disrepute.

The complaint is upheld and the Sunday Observer is severely admonished.