Adjudication No. 51 (March 1979) [1979] APC 4

ADJUDICATION No. 51 (March 1979)

The Prisoners' Action Group, acting on behalf of Mr. Bernard Matthews, a prisoner in Parramatta Jail, complained to the Australian Press Council about a report published in The Sydney Morning Herald on January 13, headed "Interview may lead to ban on jail magazine".

The article asserted that copies of the prisoners' journal, Contact, had been distributed while the jail superintendent was on holidays and without his having seen and approved it. The article, quoting "a senior jail official", also threw doubt on the claim that a prisoner, who was the subject of a long interview printed in Contact, was in Parramatta Jail at the time of the alleged interview.

The Press Council had evidence put before it in the form of statutory declarations from prisoners to show that a proof of Contact had been submitted to the jail superintendent for inspection prior to its publication and that the prisoner had indeed been interviewed by Mr. Matthews, editor of Contact, on the day in question.

The Press Council is not able to decide where the truth lies between these two conflicting assertions of fact. But the Council takes this opportunity of repeating that it is very much alert to the difficulties some disadvantaged groups of citizens face in making their position public, and suggests that the Press makes special efforts to help them in such cases.