Daily Telegraph’s report on protection of mentally ill criminals ‘accurate’ and ‘fair’
The Daily Telegraph’s article about rapists and murderers who were being secretly protected by mental health laws was accurate and fair, the press watchdog has ruled.
‘Secret Lives of Brutal Killers – Mental health justice system puts monsters on the streets’, which ran on April 1 2017, commented on decisions made by the Mental Health Review Tribunal, which had released some of its 460 forensic patients – murderers and rapists – into the community.
The Press Council did not uphold the complaint
A full report also ran with the headline ‘Killers and rapists are being freed in secrecy’, while an online version, from March 31, had the headline ‘Mental Act review demand: Telegraph calls for changes to law that allows details suppression.’
The News-Corp owned masthead was asked to comment on whether the reporting complied with Press Council standards, after a complaint was made. Specifically, it was asked to comment about its references to the ‘hundreds’ of forensics patients who had committed the alleged acts.
In its response, The Daily Telegraph said the article concerned patients who had killed and raped adults, and had sexually assaulted children. In each instance, the trial had found the person had committed the act they were charged with, however the person was found not guilty by reason of mental illness.
According to The Daily Telegraph, it received information before publication that more than 100 of these people had been released to the community.
When the Mental Health Tribunal’s Annual Report for 2016-17 was released following the article, it said there were 149 such persons who had been released. According to the dictionary, 149 persons can be defined as ‘hundreds’.
The Daily Telegraph also argued its decision to report the whereabouts of those patients as ‘unknown’ was legitimate, because legislation prohibits release of that information.
“The article reported on concerns about the treatment of people whose actions would have constituted a criminal offence if not for the defence of mental illness, and who were released into the community,” the Press Council wrote.
“While the Mental Health Review Tribunal would have been aware of a range of information about such persons, the Council notes that they were released into the community and their release was not made public by the Tribunal at the time.
“Accordingly the Council considers that in describing them as criminals whose whereabouts were unknown, the publication took reasonable steps to ensure the material published was accurate and not misleading, and reasonably fair and balanced.”
Further, the press watchdog ruled referring to “hundreds” was an accurate description that did not mislead readers.
The Press Council cleared The Daily Telegraph.
