Adjudication No. 995 (September 1998) [1998] APC 41

ADJUDICATION No. 995 (September 1998)

The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint against The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, over a story which claimed that John Williams had urged NSW MPs to sack Justice Vince Bruce on the eve of an Upper House vote over the future of the judge.

At the time Justice Bruce was still to deliver a judgment in a case involving Mr Williams. Mr Williams complained that both the headline to the story (Sack judge Bruce - he ruined me) and its introductory paragraph drew a totally false inference from comments he made to a Daily Telegraph reporter that MPs should "consider all the evidence and come to a considered judgement", and "... if they feel the evidence is overwhelming, then they should vote to remove him".

Mr Williams also complained that the report inferred that his motive was vindictive because it alleged that the judge's procrastination in delivering a judgment had "ruined" Mr Williams when in fact he had only admitted to financial difficulties arising out of the delay which had required him to find other work.

Although there was some discrepancy in the accounts given by Mr Williams and the newspaper as to what had been said in the interview with The Daily Telegraph, there was nothing in the newspaper's account to justify a report that Mr Williams had urged MPs to "sack" the judge or that his business had been "ruined".

This was a distortion of the facts and potentially harmful to Mr Williams.