Complaint ABOUT thr Press Complaints Commission.

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

13/ The next letter from the Complaints Officer to me was dated 02 October 2007, enclosed with her letter was a copy of a letter from the Editor. I have read that letter from the Complaints Officer many times, she reproduced much of the Editor's letter, one can pick large holes in her letter and I came to regard it as virtually an ultimatum to me, "Accept the Editor's offer or it will go to the Commission". I quote the first two lines of the penultimate paragraph of her letter;
"Should you not be willing to accept the newspaper's offer, I think the next step would be to put this matter to the Commission for its view". Kindly note I was not given the opportunity to comment on the Editor's new offer or on her letter.
The Editor's offers was different to his first offers, there was no direct admission in regard to the inaccuracy and no suggestion of an apology. Part of the Editor's offer could, I think, be considered to be approaching perverse. I replied with regard to the Editor's new offers.

14/ The next letter to me from the PCC, dated 09 October 2007, was from a different Complaints Officer, as the one dealing with my complaint was on annual leave. The letter listed her view as to the points raised in my letter and stated that she was happy to ask the newspaper for its response to the issues I had raised.

15/ The next letter to me from the PCC was dated 18 October 2007, it was from the Complaints Officer originally dealing with my complaint as she had returned from leave.
Her letter stated that she had received a further response from the Editor and had enclosed a copy, she also quoted "for ease of reference" five lines from the editor's letter. In these five lines, among other things were words that, for the first time clearly admitted the inaccuracy
and also included the word sorry. At that time I accepted both the Complaints Officer's letter and the copy of the letter from the Editor at face value, this because there was no indication whatsoever that they should not be accepted at face value. However, even at face value there were "grey" areas in the letter from the Complaints Officer.

16/ Much later, after the Commission Members had come to a decision, I queried the word
"emails" used in a letter by the Complaints Officer. The answer to my query clearly showed that neither the letter written by the Complaints Officer nor the "letter" from the Editor could be taken at face value. When I brought my concern about this to the attention of senior members of the PCC Secretariat I used words similar to "lack of rigour", now I think that the more robust word to describe the "purported" letter from the Editor could well be "Forgery". As a result of this I came to view the correspondence on the 18 October as being critical in regard as to how my complaint was handled and, in all probability, judged. I have asked the PPC to let me know exactly what was placed before the Commission Members, by Complaints Officers, to aid them in coming to a decision in regard to my complaint, this was not complied with, so much for their aim of Fairness.

This blog on the PCC will be continued in Part Five.

Frederick W Gilling 22 November 2009.