Adjudication No. 204 (August 1984) [1984] APC 27

ADJUDICATION No. 204 (August 1984)

On 16 March 1984 The Mercury published an article headed "Thompson in line for $15,000 year Commonwealth pension". The person referred to had been tried for killing his wife and found to have been insane at the time of the offence. He was an employee of a Commonwealth agency, and the article dealt with his likely pension rights on being invalided out of the service, based on an interview with the agency's personnel officer. It also detailed some financial arrangements which had been made for Mr Thompson's children.

The complainant, who described himself as just an ordinary citizen, submitted that the Publication was improper for the reasons that the paper should not have sought the information, the personnel officer should not have discussed confidential matters relating to an employee, the paper should not have published it, and the publishing of details about the children showed a complete lack of sensitivity towards them and what they must have been through.

In correspondence with the complainant the editor of the paper informed the complainant that the personnel officer had volunteered the information in the article. He agreed, in hindsight, that any reference to the children was insensitive. Otherwise he defended the article.

The Press Council agrees that the intrusion into the privacy of the children was unfortunate. For the rest, Mr Thompson was already in the public eye as a result of his trial, and how public funds would be expended in the peculiar circumstances of the case was a matter of legitimate interest to the public.

The complaint is dismissed.