Adjudication No. 304 (October 1986) [1986] APC 40

ADJUDICATION No. 304 (October 1986)

On July 23, 1986 The Courier-Mail published a story, together with a photograph under the heading "Dead policewoman under investigation", saying that a policewoman killed in a road accident had been under an incomplete internal police investigation- After describing the investigation, which was into an allegation that the woman had used the police computer improperly to give information to a car repossession agent, the story went on:

A police spokesman said last night it was unfair to mention the allegations now that the police woman was dead.

A person is innocent until proven guilty, and no decision had been made about her when she died," he said.

This is very unfair to her family.

Subsequently the paper received and published letters from the deceased woman's superior, from the Policewomen's Association, and from her family, all critical of the publication- The Press Council has received similar complaints from Ms L Herrigan and from the Queensland Police Union.

While the paper is to be commended for its willingness to publish harsh criticism of itself, this does not undo any damage done by the original publication. Whether that publication was justified cannot be answered by any simple rule; it depends on a balancing of considerations. On the one hand the publication must have been most distressing to the grieving family and friends of the dead woman, and it aired allegations against her which could not be answered as a result of her death. Was there, on the other hand, such public interest in the publication of the story as to override these considerations of privacy and fairness?

The editor claims that there was, pointing to the fact that the woman occupied a position of public trust and to previously published stories (which did not name her) about the internal police investigation. While these stories created a situation where at some stage the public should be informed that the investigation had been aborted by the death of the person involved, they did not create a need to identify her, and certainly not to identify her at such a distressing time.

The Press Council accepts that the paper acted in good faith, but on balance, considers that the material about the dead woman should not have been published.