Complaint ABOUT the Press Complaints Commission

This is Part Six of, Complaints about, Criticism of, and Suggestions to, the PCC.

20/ As explained in the previous blog I was looking at events of 18 October from the perspective of different viewpoints dependent on information supplied at later dates. This is from perspective C which arose from new information supplied to me on 06 February 2008 by the Assistant Director of the PCC. As a consequence of that information I was in the position of being able to put the events of that critical day in the correct chronological order.

Firstly the Complaints Officer appointed to handle my complaint received an email from the Editor "sent Thu 18/10/2007 at 11:41", this email was in fact addressed to another PCC staff member who had written to the Editor while the Complaints Officer was on leave.

The essential part of this email from the Editor read; "I am unwilling to offer anything further to the suggestions I made to [name supplied] in my email dated 02 October 2007 and would welcome you asking the Commission to come to a view on the complaint". I note that those suggestions did not specifically acknowledge the inaccuracy and had no mention of regret.

The Complaints Officer then composed and sent off the "intervening" email to the Editor. This was timed at 14:50 and I quote from it; "I appreciate that you are not willing to offer anything further on this matter, and will of course put this case before the Commission for its view.

Before I do so however, I wonder whether you might be willing to outline the wording of the correction that you are willing to offer, in order that the complainant, and of course the Commission, are aware of the exact terms of your offer"

I note that the words quoted above infer that the exact terms of the offer on which the Editor was "unwilling to offer anything further" were not known. I also note that the Complaints Officer had told him, "I appreciate that you are not willing to offer anything further on this matter, and ----- "

At 16:53 the Editor emailed his reply to the Complaints Officer's "intervening" email, I quote parts of this letter:

"The wording of the correction I am prepared to offer would be on the lines of ----- "
" ----- incorrectly stated that the longest story ----- "
"We are sorry for any worry this may have caused the author"

This was the first direct admission of the inaccuracy and the first mention of any form of regret.
In general this was a drastic departure from his offer of 02 October and from his statement in his first email that morning. This I venture to think was due to the intervening email from the Complaints Officer.

The Complaints Officer then amalgamated the two letters from the Editor into one, addressed specifically to her, even though the first one had been addressed to another person. I fail completely to see any reason to amalgamate two emails, particularly the two mentioned and even more particularly because the second one was prompted by an intervening email, of which I knew nothing. The three emails were heavily inter related and should have been presented as separate entities.
At some time shortly after receiving the amalgamated email, and before I had been told that it was an amalgamation of two emails, I marked two places on it and wrote on it in red ink "this is one offer and this is another". I would not have known anything about the two letters being amalgamated unless I had queried the plural implied by the use of the word emails and as I composed and typed these last words I had the thought, "and I wonder who else knew about them"? Did the Complaints Officer talk about what she had done or was about to do? And yet another thought "were the Commission Members told that it was an amalgamated letter"? If, that is, it was presented to them, or for that matter if any part of it was quoted by the Complaints Officer in support of a draft resolution to my complaint

Even when writing to me, on 10 December 2007, and telling me that there were two emails from the Editor on 18 October, she did not send me copies of the individual letters, nor indeed mention her intervening letter.

Another point that worried me, and still does, concerns a phone conversation between the Complaints Officer and the Editor, in respect of this I quote from a letter from the Complaints Officer to me dated 22 November 2007; "I have had one conversation with [name given] about this case. It took place on 25 September, and [name given] indicated his intentions to revise his offer to the terms set out in his email of 2 October"

On 24 November I wrote and asked "Am I right in assuming that the conversation was on a telephone and that the call had been initiated by [Editor named]"? This question was answered on 27 November by the Complaints Officer as follows, "You are correct in your assumption that the conversation was by telephone. From my recollection, the conversation was initiated by
Mr[Editor named]".
The last paragraph of this letter to me, from the Complaints Officer, finished with the sentence
"I must now consider this correspondence closed".

The situation had developed that answers to questions that I had asked just raised more questions. The answer to the question about the conversation did just that, and in my mind I feel certain that aspect of establishing the facts about the phone call have not been answered. At that particular point in time I cannot think of a reason for the Editor to phone the Complaints Officer but I can think of a reason for her to phone him, which could well be to do with the PCC's aim of "fast" Later a copy of the Complaints Officer's jotted down notes regarding the phone call was sent to me, they were very brief and not easy to read.

It is a source of amazement to me that several senior members of the PCC secretariat, including the Independent Charter Commissioner, could not fault the way my case had been handled.
The Complaints Officer amalgamated two critical email into one and did not mention it to me, she also cannot recall exactly who initiated a phone call, did not later send me copies of the two emails that she had amalgamated, did not tell me about her "intervening" email and accidentally omitted to send me a copy of it. I have already mentioned what I term grey areas in one letter, I have no reason to withdraw that statement, and will add to it by stating the thought that at least two of her letters were potential minefields to me, this is not to say they were intended to be but that is how I came to view them.

Before closing this part of my blog on the PCC I wish to record my appreciation of the letter, written to me on 06 February 2008, by the Assistant Director in charge of the Complaints Department. He supplied the information and copies of documents that filled in gaps in my knowledge. However I wish to comment on several aspects of his letter, part of which read "I should tell you that this letter will mark the end of the correspondence from the PCC".
Another part, about the accidental omission on the part of the Complaints Officer concerned to send me her intervening email then went on; "I think this may be the root cause of the confusion on this. I therefore enclose that email also. I hope that you accept this as the final word on the matter, and recognise that there was - clearly - nothing suspicious or untoward going on." My comment on this after all, hopefully, of the facts eventually became known to me is that if it was clear that nothing untoward was going on why comment on it?. If amalgamating two critical emails into one and not telling the complainant about it is par for the course among the PCC secretariat then I think that is untoward. It is also untoward, in my opinion, not to let me know on exactly what information the Commission judged my case.
I will comment on the part of the Assistant Director's letter to do with my alledged refusal of an offer of apology in the next part of this blog.

This blog on the PCC will be concluded in Part Seven.

Frederick W Gilling 26 November 2009