Adjudication No. 425 (November 1989) [1989] APC 38

ADJUDICATION No. 425 (November 1989)

The Australian Press Council rejects a complaint that an article about a doctor who raped a number of female patients over three decades was tasteless and not suitable for publication in a colour magazine.

Mrs Juliet Pettitt complains that an article published in the Sunday Herald colour magazine of 27 August 1989 ought not to have been published as it was in breach of the Press Council's principle Number 7 which states:

A newspaper has a wide discretion in matters of taste, but this does not justify lapses of taste so gross as to bring the freedom of the press into disrepute.

While she believes that the article would be quite acceptable in a publication intended for an adult audience, she believes that this should not have been published in a colour magazine, attractive to the younger members of the family as well as adults, where considerable restraint ought to be exercised on the choice of material. The article reports that, for three decades, women of Lovell in Wyoming were raped by their local doctor.

The Australian Press Council agrees with the Sunday Herald's contentions that the article was written in a non-sensational manner and that people of all ages have a right to be aware of the possibilities of such abuse by a figure of authority.