Following an article published by the Kentish Gazette (Canterbury and District) and kentonline.co.uk on 16 October 2014 headlined “Refugees spark pupil safety fears”, Cllr Alex Perkins complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the Kentish Gazette had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 4 (Harassment), Clause 6 (Children) and Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

IPSO upheld the complaint in part, and decided that there had been a breach of Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code.

IPSO required the Kentish Gazette to publish this decision, by its Complaints Committee, to remedy the breach.

The article reported concerns in the Kent area that unaccompanied male asylum seekers were “lying” about their ages and were “being placed in schools” with 11-year-old children.

It stated that men in their 20s were being dishonest about their ages, attributing this assertion to “head teachers in Canterbury”.

Sub-headlines on the newspaper’s front page had stated that “asylum seekers lie about age to get themselves educated”, and that “men in their 20s [are] being placed in schools with 11-year-olds”.

The article had included direct quotations from head teachers. One stated that schools had been told to expect pupils “who were 15 or 16 only to find they were clearly 20 or 21”, and that “sometimes there is doubt about where [the pupils] have come from, and even what age they are”, and another stating “while many of these are genuine cases… a minority are not”.

Two head teachers quoted also referred to “safeguarding concerns”.

The complainant said that the coverage was inaccurate as there was no proof that asylum seekers had been lying about their age, nor had any adults of 20 been placed in schools with pupils aged 11.

He noted that none of the head teachers quoted in the article had confirmed that there were pupils enrolled at their schools who had lied about their ages, nor had they expressed concerns about safety.

The complainant had spoken to a representative from the County Council who had said that there had been only two cases over a number of years in which unaccompanied asylum seekers were found to be older than originally thought.

Neither was 20, and neither was placed in a school with 11 year olds. Furthermore, there were only 10 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Kent this academic year, with just 3 placed in Canterbury.

The Kentish Gazette considered that publication of the article was in the public interest, as the matter reported was a safeguarding issue, which had implications for the well-being of pupils.

The newspaper defended the accuracy of its coverage. It said that on-the-record comments by local head teachers, quoted in the article, supported the claims made.

The newspaper also cited a representative from Kent County Council, who had made reference to “very rare cases where asylum-seeking children have been found to be older than the age they claimed”.

While every case was different, it was not inaccurate to state that some asylum seekers who had given a false age were “lying”.

The newspaper also drew attention to the fact that, after publication of the story, ithad printed a number of readers’ letters, opposing the views expressed in its coverage.

The Committee noted that the Code makes clear that “protecting public health and safety” forms part of the public interest which journalism may serve, and it acknowledged that the protection of children was a matter of particular importance,and a legitimate subject of investigation.

The Committee considered that the newspaper was entitled to investigate concerns which had been drawn to its attention and to ask local head teachers for comment to establish whether there was a safety risk to children in the county.

However, the Committee found that the comments from head teachers and council representatives, making reference to the difficulties of establishing the ages of unaccompanied asylum seekers, and to rare occurrences of adults applying for school places, did not support the newspaper’s contention that “men in 20s [were] lying about [their] age and going to schools”, nor did the newspaper subsequently produce any material which might justify this prominent assertion.

The publication of these claims therefore represented a failure to take care not to publish inaccurate information in breach of Clause 1 (i).

This statement was not an accurate summary of the information contained in the article, and in the context of a report which made reference to safety concerns, it was significantly misleading.

This aspect of the complaint was upheld. Publication of IPSO’s full adjudication on the matter was required to remedy this breach of the Code.