22450-23 Daniel v Daily Record

Summary of Complaint

1. Martyn Daniel complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the Daily Record breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “I've got to tell parole board why rapist can't be set free”, published on 4 September 2024.

2. The article reported that a woman wished to meet with the Scottish Parole Board in-person before it decided whether or not to release the complainant. The article explained that the complainant had been “jailed in December 2017 for nine years and seven months […] for horrific sexual violence and brutality against [the woman], another woman and a girl”. It went on to report that the complainant “was convicted of raping all three over an eight-year-period […] and a catalogue of sadistic violence against [the woman] and another woman.”

3. The article included direct quotations from the woman, relating to her relationship with the complainant. The article reported that “[s]he said: ‘I was battered senseless so many times, kicked unconscious at least once a week but one beating stands out when he finished things off by slamming my head off the wall. I realised over the next few days that I’d lost the ability to play music. I couldn’t remember any of the pieces I’d known by heart.’” It further reported that the woman “was a skilled classical-jazz pianist but lost all her music”.

4. The article went on to report that the woman “added that [the complainant] used her as his ‘sex-slave’ every morning for eight months until he was hungry. ‘He would stop me getting out of bed to get my older daughter ready for school,’ she added, […] ‘He threatened her that he would kill us both in our sleep and drop us in the harbour.’” The article then reported that the woman “said” the complainant “kept her prisoner. After she managed to get out of her home on a couple of occasions by pushing herself through the upper part of her ground-floor windows, he locked the tops of the windows and hid the keys. She added that [the complainant] was always careful not to hit her in front of her children, though he enjoyed causing them distress. She said: ‘Once he was abusing me on one side of the kitchen while my [children] were on the other side crying for their mum. He was laughing and enjoying it.’”

5. The article also reported that the complainant had been “bailed to an address around the corner to await trial. [The woman] said: […] ‘It turned out they moved him after three months but I was never told for a year”. It then reported that the woman “had no idea other victims had come forward” and that “she said key evidence emerged from a female witness who had been the complainant’s closest friend. She said: ‘He woke me up one morning by raping me […] She was staying the in the next room and heard everything.” It also reported that the woman “finally managed to break free of” the complainant after a violent incident in front of her children.

6. The article also appeared online in substantially the same format, under the headline “Scot rape survivor demands to tell parole board hearing why beast can’t be free”.

7. The complainant contacted the publication via letter on 18 October 2023 and 10 November 2023, to make it aware that he considered the article included factual inaccuracies. He said that the article referred to a number of allegations made by the woman which he was not convicted of nor accused of at trial. These allegations were that: he “kicked [the woman] unconscious at least once a week”; he had “slam[med her] head off a wall”; the woman had “lost all her music” after being assaulted by the complainant; he threatened to kill the woman’s child in their sleep; he enjoyed causing distress to her children; the woman had been forced to escape out of a window; he kept the woman as a “sex-slave” and refused to let her out of bed. He said the latter could not be true, as the article said he had kept the woman as a “sex slave” for eight months, but he had not lived with her for this long.

8. The complainant also said that he had not been bailed to live around the corner from the woman, as reported by the article, and he also wasn’t moved after three months. He further disputed that the woman had not known that “other victims had come forward”, as he said she had been talking online to one of the other victims before he had been charged. Finally, he said that his female friend had not given key evidence at the trial which led to his conviction. He said that, in fact, his friend had given evidence that no such rape had occurred, and this resulted in his acquittal on one of the charges against him.

9. The complainant requested that the newspaper publish an apology, addressing each allegation. He did not receive a response from the publication, and subsequently complained to IPSO on 5 December 2023 that the article breached Clause 1 on the grounds set out above. He also said that the publication had failed to seek his side of the story, or ask him if he wished to comment, in breach of this Clause, and that the article was not impartial.

10. To support his position, the complainant provided excerpts from his charge sheet, along with his comments on the charges. The complainant said that he had been found guilty by majority of raping the woman. However, he also said that he had been acquitted of another charge of rape, as this was found not proven at trial.

11. The publication did not accept a breach of the Code, and noted that the complainant had been found guilty of 11 charges including rape, abduction, and violence against several women. Turning to the allegations made in the article which the complainant said he had not been convicted of or accused of at trial, it said that the article made clear that these were the woman’s claims and statements. Therefore, it said that the article clearly distinguished between comment and fact. To support its position, the publication provided an appeal document, which it said supported the woman’s claims. This document included the following:

“[The woman] had met the [complainant…] and had begun a relationship with him. This transpired to be a violent affair, with repeated episodes of rape found established in terms of the libel.

[…]

Assault charges [5]

In relation to the assault charges against which the appeal is directed, these both involved [the woman]. Charge 11 libelled various occasions on which the [complainant] had spat on her, seized her by the hair, punched her and committed other acts of physical aggression. Charge 20 was a single episode of repeatedly kicking the complainer to her head, to her severe injury.”

The publication, therefore, did not accept the complainant’s suggestion that he had been acquitted of rape.

12. It also said that, while the complainant disputed that he had been bailed to live around the corner from the woman, this claim appeared in the context of an article where the woman discussed her story. Therefore, it did not accept that this represented a significant inaccuracy. It said that its reporter had advised that the woman had raised the issue of the bail address with the Parole Board, which the reporter had attended with the woman, though it could not provide any evidence to support this as the reporter no longer worked for the publication. It then said that the article did not report that the female witness appeared on the woman’s behalf, and said that this was also distinguished as the woman’s quote.

13. In response, the complainant said that the address to where he was bailed was significant, despite what the publication had said. He also said that Parole Boards do not deal with bail addresses. He said the publication had not properly fact-checked their article, and said that a reference to his bail address did not appear in quote marks. Rather, the article reported, without attribution to the woman, that he “was bailed to an address around the corner to await trial.”

14. The complainant also said that the article presented the woman’s claim about the witness as fact, despite the fact that it was in quotation marks. He said that readers would not understand that this was the woman’s comment, rather than a statement of fact about what happened during court proceedings. He also said that the appeal document provided by the publication also contained inaccuracies.

15. The complainant provided a document from his local council which he said confirmed his address was on the other side of the city from the woman’s address. Parts of this document were redacted; it read as follows:

“Appeared on petition in private and released on bail. [REDACTED]. New address is stated as [full address given].”

16. The complainant also provided a statement from his friend referred to in the article, which he said demonstrated that her evidence had not supported the woman’s account. The statement did not say that the complainant had raped the woman.

17. The complainant also said it was inaccurate for the article to report the woman’s claim that she had “finally managed to break free of” him, as he said that he had in fact wanted to end the relationship first.

18. The publication said that the address listed on the charge sheet – which it believed to be the woman’s address – was a seven-minute drive, or twenty-minute walk, away from where the complainant said he was bailed to. It was therefore satisfied that the article accurately described the address as being “just around the corner”.

19. Turning next to the question of whether the female witness had supported the woman’s account or not, the publication reiterated its position that this was clearly presented as the woman’s quote and therefore distinguished between comment, conjecture, and fact. However, it said that, if IPSO found that this reference breached the Code, it would be happy to add the following corrections in print on page 2 and online as a footnote correction, respectively:

“Our article 'I’ve got to tell parole board why rapist can’t be set free', 4 September, outlined the brave story of a rape survivor and her demands to address the Parole Board for Scotland directly. The convicted rapist, Daniel Martyn, complained that he disputed the victim's account of the evidence that emerged from a female witness. We have been asked to put this on record by the Independent Press Standards Organisation.”

“Since this article was published, Daniel Martyn has disputed the victim's account of the evidence that emerged from a female witness. We have been asked to put this on record by the Independent Press Standards Organisation.”

Relevant Clause Provisions

Clause 1 (Accuracy)

i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.

ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator.

iii) A fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when reasonably called for.

iv) The Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

Findings of the Committee

20. The Committee wished to be clear from the outset that its decision would be limited to whether the newspaper, in reporting the woman’s account of her relationship with the complainant and the outcome of the proceedings against the complainant, breached the terms of the Editors’ Code of Practice. It was not the role of the Committee to re-consider matters already decided on by the courts.

21. The article included many direct quotes from one of the complainant’s victims, which contained a series of claims about the complainant’s conduct during the relationship between them. The complainant had said that the inclusion of these claims breached the terms of Clause 1 as he had not been accused of these claims at trial, nor had he been convicted of specific offences arising from these claims. However, the Committee noted that the article did not claim that this was the case. Rather, these claims were presented as the woman’s account of their relationship, directly attributed to her as such, and were distinguished from the factual report of the outcome of the legal proceedings against the complainant.

22. The Committee recognised the inherent difficulty of verifying claims which are made by one party about another party’s conduct during a relationship. However, the claims made in the article were clearly presented as the woman’s account of her relationship with the complainant – rather than as findings which had been made by the court – and prior to publication the newspaper had had sight of court documents which detailed the offences which the complainant had been found to have committed against the woman, which included physical abuse and rape. The Committee was therefore satisfied that due care had been taken in presenting the woman’s account of the complainant’s conduct during their relationship, and that the article was not significantly inaccurate, distorted, or misleading by reporting the woman’s claims in light of the nature of the crimes for which the complainant had been convicted.

23. The article reported that the woman had told the newspaper that the complainant had been “bailed to an address around the corner to await trial”, which the complainant disputed. He also disputed the reported claim that he had then been moved from that address after three months. The Committee noted that, in a document provided by the complainant to support his position on this point, there was a reference to a “new address”, and that this followed a sentence which had been redacted. In such circumstances, the Committee was unclear as to where the complainant had initially been bailed to: the reference to a “new address” indicated that this was not the complainant’s first bail address. At any rate, the Committee noted that the complainant did not dispute that, rightly or wrongly, the woman believed he had been bailed to an address which she considered to be too close to her home address and that she had raised this as a point of concern before the Parole Board. The Committee considered that relying upon the woman as the source of this information did not demonstrate a lack of care given her involvement in the case and also took into account that it was not in dispute that both of the complainant’s bail addresses were in the same town as the woman. In these circumstances, the Committee did not consider that the article was significantly inaccurate, distorted, or misleading on this point. There was no breach of Clause 1.

24. The complainant had said it was inaccurate to report that the woman had not known that “other victims had come forward”, as she had been speaking online to other victims prior to the case. It did not follow that, because the two women had been communicating online, that she was aware that the other woman had made allegations of criminal behaviour against the complainant. In such circumstances, and in the absence of the other woman’s position on the matter, the Committee did not consider this to be a breach of Clause 1.

25. The article reported that the woman had said that “key evidence emerged from a female witness who had been the complainant’s closest friend. She said: ‘He woke me up one morning by raping me […] She was staying the in the next room and heard everything’.” The complainant disputed this as he said the female witness had actually supported his account, and that this had led to an acquittal of a charge of rape against him at trial. He also provided what he said was a statement from the witness, which did not allege that the complainant had raped the woman while she was staying with the complainant and the woman.

26. The Committee considered that this was a claim of fact regarding the legal proceedings against the complainant, rather than the woman’s opinion. The Committee again considered that the publication’s reliance on the woman’s recollection of the trial did not represent a lack of care taken over the accuracy of the article, in the context of an article which focused on her first-person account of her relationship with the complainant. Taking the article as a whole into account, the Committee did not consider that any inaccuracy in relation to this point was significant in circumstances where there had been sufficient evidence before the court that the complainant had raped the woman and where the complainant’s conviction for rape had been accurately reported in the article. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

27. The complainant had also said that the article was inaccurate as the woman had not “finally managed to break free” at the end of their relationship, as he had in fact wanted to end the relationship. In circumstances where it was not in dispute that the woman had expressed this sentiment while speaking to the newspaper, and given that the complainant had been found guilty of raping and physically abusing the woman, the Committee did not consider that reporting the woman’s position was inaccurate, misleading, or distorted.

28. The complainant had said that the article was not impartial, and that this was a breach of Clause 1. The Editors’ Code does not require impartiality and, provided the Code is not otherwise breached, newspapers are entitled to publish the views of others, even if the resulting article is one-sided, as was alleged by the complainant in this instance. Therefore, there was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

29. The publication had not sought the complainant’s comment prior to publishing the article under complaint, and the complainant considered that this represented a breach of Clause 1. The Committee noted that there is no standalone requirement in Clause 1 or in any other Clause to seek the comment of interested parties prior to publication. In some cases, a failure to reach out for comment may represent a failure to take care over the accuracy of the article. However, in circumstances where the Committee article did not find that the article included any significantly inaccurate information over which there had been a failure to take care, there was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

Conclusions

30. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

31. N/A

Date complaint received: 29/11/2023

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 11/07/2024