Adjudication No. 697 (January 1994) [1994] APC 6

ADJUDICATION No. 697 (January 1994)

The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint by VIP Car Park Management Services over an article entitled "Call for halt to clamping" which appeared in the Sun-Herald.

The complainant argues that the article, which loosely describes the court case following an incident involving the wheel clamping of a vehicle, is both misleading and mis-representative of the facts.

On reading of the transcript, from which presumably the article's facts were extracted, it would appear that indeed certain relevant facts concerning the case were, either by accident or design, not reported in the article.

This selective reporting had the effect of changing the whole nature of the case.

It is important, where a particular court case is considered to be in the public interest, that all relevant facts and details are published, so as to provide a fair and balanced report.

When reading this particular article, one gets the impression the defendant is an unfortunate victim, who has scored a moral victory against a company which is subject to legal uncertainty.

The fact that the magistrate described the victim of the wheel clamping as a "completely unreliable and untruthful witness" or "sarcastic and argumentative" is not reported. Neither is it reported that the counter-claim of $20,000 for personal injury was described as "no more than a red herring" with "no evidence whatsoever" and dismissed.

There is little doubt that the reporting of these facts would have changed the complexion of the article, and indeed would have provided a more balanced view of the case.