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Pam & Tommy Actor Lily James' Complaint Against Daily Mail Upheld

Star of Pam & Tommy, the actor Lily James, has had a complaint against the Daily Mail's website MailOnline upheld by the British media monitor, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. MailOnline has been made to issue a statement about the judgment. The statement runs below, and Mail Online posted it, with imagery, at midnight UK time last night. The judgment means that "a link to the full adjudication should be linked on the top half of the homepage of the publication's website for at least 24 hours, and should then be archived in the usual way."

The details of the complaint is listed here and the adjudication below. Lily James' complaint mentions 51 articles published by MailOnline, seven in one day (eighteen in one week) that breached privacy and harassment clauses of the Editors' Code of Practice. That "all of the articles published in this period of time either centered around or contained references to, photographs of the complainant with another actor abroad. The articles speculated on the nature of the relationship between the complainant and the actor, and whether it was romantic in nature." They also asked if meeting this person broke coronavirus rules at the time, but it was stated that Lily James was conducting a business meeting, which was permitted by guidelines at the time.

Lily James complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that Mail Online breached Clause 2 (Privacy) and Clause 3 (Harassment) of the Editors' Code of Practice in a series of 51 articles, published between 12 October 2020 and 2 February 2021.

The complainant said that the publication had harassed her by continuing to approach her after she had made it aware of her concerns on several occasions about what she considered to be persistent and intrusive approaches from the press and her request that these approaches should cease.

The complainant also said that the publication had breached her privacy by taking and publishing a set of photographs showing her eating dinner in a restaurant with two colleagues. She said she had been sitting towards the back of the restaurant and was not readily visible to passers-by; therefore, she said, she had a reasonable expectation of privacy, which was not overridden by any public interest.

IPSO found that Mail Online had breached Clause 3 of the Editors' Code of Practice. An IPSO privacy notice, circulated on 13 October 2020, made a specific request for members of the press to leave the area around the complainant's home and refrain from attempting to contact and photograph her. After this request had been made, a public interest was required under the terms of Clause 3 to justify persisting in attempts to contact and photograph the complainant. The publication had then commissioned a journalist to look for the complainant in the vicinity of her home. The decision to direct a journalist to attend the area around the complainant's house to "watch" for her in the immediate aftermath of the circulation of the notice broke the terms of the request to desist from attempting to contact and approach the complainant in the vicinity of her home, and the request for members of the press to disperse from the area around her home. There was, therefore, a breach of Clause 3 in relation to the repeated approaches to the area of the complainant's home. A separate complaint under Clause 3 about the volume of the coverage relating to the complainant was not upheld.

IPSO also found that the publication had breached Clause 2 of the Editors' Code, by publishing a set of photographs showing the complainant seated and eating in the back of a restaurant. Clause 2 of the Editors' Code makes clear that it is unacceptable to photograph individuals in public places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy without their consent, and the Committee concluded that the complainant did have a reasonable expectation of privacy at the time that the photographs were taken, with a long-lens camera. The complainant had taken clear steps to seat herself away from public view, and the photographs had been obtained surreptitiously from outside the restaurant using professional equipment.

Mail Online had said that there was a public interest in publishing the photographs, which outweighed any reasonable expectation of privacy which the complainant might have had – because in its view they appeared to show the complainant engaged in an activity which contravened the Covid-19 guidance which was in place at the time. However, the complainant had told Mail Online prior to publication that the photographs showed her engaged in a business meeting – which was allowed, according to guidance at the time, which Mail Online was not in a position to dispute. It did not appear to have given further consideration as to whether there was a public interest in the photographs' publication, having been made aware of this information. There was, therefore, a breach of Clause 2.

IPSO upheld the complaints under Clause 2 (Privacy) and Clause 3 (Harassment) and required publication of this adjudication as a remedy.

IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, is the independent regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK and was set up in 2014

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