Adjudication No. 316 (January 1987) [1987] APC 3

ADJUDICATION No. 316 (January 1987)

Mr and Mrs W Lowe of Alice Springs have complained to the Press Council concerning two articles which appeared in The Centralian Advocate which is published in Alice Springs. The articles relate to their sixteen year old son who died in a motor accident. The first article related to a coronial inquiry into a fire at the Federal Sports Club. That it was a coronial inquiry was not stated in the report. There was a detailed report of police allegations concerning other fires and there is also a report of the fact that the youth had pleaded guilty to throwing a molotov cocktail through the window of an Alice Springs high school class room in November of the preceding year. It was argued on behalf of the parents that this was a "great deal of speculative material" and was prejudicial. No charges were in fact laid but if there had been, the solicitor said he would have sought a change of venue for the hearing because of the damaging effect of the publication on potential jurors.

The second report complained of appeared in The Centralian Advocate on 21 May 1986. It is a report of the circumstances of the motor vehicle accident in which the youth was killed. However, in the same article it is stated that the youth appeared in the Alice Springs court that month on charges of lighting fires at the Federal Sports Club, a flat in Tea-Tree Court and a Mallam Crescent house. It said that the youth had denied the allegations. It repeats the fact that he pleaded guilty in the earlier case.

Although the coroner apparently concluded that the youth had in fact lit the fire at the Alice Springs Federal Sports Club, no charges had yet been laid against him. The matter had not been tested from the point of criminal law before a criminal court. The newspaper was therefore in error in stating that the youth had appeared on charges of lighting fires - the youth had merely been a witness at the coronial inquest.

The newspaper points out that the coroner himself did not move to stop publication of the police information given at the coronial inquest. The Press Council believes that evidence taken in administrative proceedings such as coronial inquests are matters to which the public is entitled to have access, therefore, publication should not be restrained even where serious allegations are made apart from exceptional cases. It is, however, important for a newspaper to stress that the matters reported are only allegations. This the newspaper did in the article of 9 May. However, on that occasion it failed to stress that the matter was a coronial inquest, although this omission did no damage. It was, however, incorrectly stated that the youth appeared on "charges" as this term is usually taken to mean the formal commencement of a criminal action. Given the circumstances of the youth's death, more precision would have been appropriate in stressing that charges had not yet been laid although the coroner had either implicitly or expressly recommended these.

However, the newspaper should not be restrained or condemned for making reference to these allegations made formally before a coroner.