Adjudication No. 1463 (adjudicated July 2010) [2010] APC 13

Adjudication No. 1463 (adjudicated July 2010)

The Australian Press Council has considered a complaint by Jane Mengler concerning an article, The Audacity of Hate, in The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine on 26 September 2009. The article focused on the life of Dr Jim Saleam, who is a member of the Australia First party that seeks to be registered as a political party for the next federal election.

The article reported that Ms Mengler is Dr Saleam's former wife and that they had two children before she left the marriage after five years. It also reported that she subsequently married a convicted murderer in a prison chapel ceremony in 1993. It quotes an anonymous source referring to her as a "notorious persons' groupie" who had previously been "involved with a figure from the Griffith mafia scene". The article also reported an incident when two people broke into Dr Saleam's home and shot Ms Mengler in the leg.

Ms Mengler's complaint said that the reference to involvement with a mafia figure implied a sexual involvement, which was untrue. She said that the description of her marriage to Dr Saleam was unfair and offensive to her and their children. She also complained about lack of fairness in the reference to her shooting, which she says was payback for her exposure of a corrupt policeman, and in the use of the "groupie" quotation, which she says came from a demonstrably biased and unreliable source whom she names.

The magazine replied that a thorough profile of Dr Saleam could not reasonably exclude mention of his former wife and mother of his children. It also pointed out that at the time of her subsequent marriage in prison she had cooperated in detailed publicity. It said that the source of the "groupie" and "Griffith mafia" references had proved to be reliable on other, verifiable, matters and it had also made many attempts to contact Ms Mengler for her version of events. The magazine had asked Dr Saleam for her contact details, or to pass a message on to her, but he had declined on the ground that she was now in fragile health and leading a very private life.

The Council considers that it was appropriate for Ms Mengler's two marriages, and the shooting incident, to be mentioned in a detailed profile of this kind. Accordingly, these aspects of her complaint are dismissed. However, the Council upholds the aspect of her complaint concerning anonymous quotations referring to Ms Mengler as a "notorious person's groupie" who had been "involved with a figure from the Griffith mafia scene". They were reasonably capable of being interpreted as offensive references to her and were unsupported by other evidence. They were not of sufficient public interest and relevance to the article to justify publishing, especially in the absence of corroboration

After being made aware by the Council of Ms Mengler's complaint, the magazine offered to publish a "letter to the editor or clarification" about the Griffith assertion. She declined the offer, stating: "This affair could never have been resolved by a letter to the editor. The damage was too great ...". The Council nevertheless welcomes the magazine's offer as a substantial attempt at mitigation.