The Daily Mail and its companion website Mail Online have been cleared by the UK press regulator over articles repeating claims that Prince Harry was forming a “secret relationship” with his sister-in-law Pippa Middleton.
The ruling follows the Independent Press Standards Organisation finding against the Daily Star over the same story, which originated in the US edition of OK! magazine.
The prince’s complaint to Ipso concerned accuracy, intrusion into privacy and failure to provide an opportunity to reply to the story.
The complaint said the Daily Mail had repeated the magazine’s claims that “the Duchess of Cambridge found her sister and brother-in-law ‘snogging in a bathroom’ at the royal wedding”, while Mail Online had reported allegations that Middleton had “spent the night several times” and that Prince William had “found the pair in a compromising position”.
However, while Ipso ruled that the Star had reported the claims in a misleading manner, it said both Mail outlets had reported the claims in a sceptical tone, and unlike the Star had sought comment from representatives of the royal family.
On the first count of accuracy, Ipso said the print title “had taken care to ensure that the claims were reported with due scepticism”, while its online sister outlet had “on balance … cast doubt over the claims”. In both cases, it said the fact that the newspapers had presented doubts about the accuracy of the OK! article reduced the impact on the prince’s privacy and the requirement to obtain a right to reply before publication.
Ipso’s decision to clear the Mail outlets contrasted sharply with its ruling on the Star last weekend, which said the story in the Richard Desmond-owned title had been “significantly misleading” in the way it had repeated OK!’s claims and had failed to approach Kensington Palace for comment.
It added that: “While it had not contained a positive assertion of their truth, there was no suggestion that there was reason to doubt their veracity.”
Ipso also rejected the Star’s defence that other papers, including the Mail, had picked up the story, and was highly critical of the newspaper’s handling of the complaint, saying it had “ failed to engage substantively with Ipso’s investigation”.
The rulings follow hard on the heels of Ipso’s ruling against the Sun article headlined “Queen Backs Brexit”, which was the regulator’s first under an updated clause that requires papers to ensure headlines reflect the content of a story.
