A general election candidate has lost a press complaint against a news website which reported he had ‘cheered on’ a man simulating sex with a car in a churchyard.
Stan Robinson, who stood for UKIP in Llanelli, objected to series of reports in Nation.Cymru carried in the run-up to the July poll.
They included stories headlined “UKIP candidate cheers on man who simulated sex with a car in a churchyard,” “Uproar as Labour councillor does fascist salute in protest against UKIP” and “UKIP candidate’s support for Franco called out by antifascist group.”
Mr Robinson complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the articles, as well as reader comments posted in response to them, breached Clauses 1 (Accuracy) and 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors’ Code.
The first article under complaint reported that a “far-right video blog run by a UKIP candidate [Mr Robinson] has been condemned after posting a message of encouragement to a man who simulated sex with a 4×4 car in front of a church” via a Facebook page which Mr Robinson co-owned.
The second reported that, during a general election hustings, a “councillor raised his arm in a fascist salute three times as a protest against the far-right UKIP candidate [Mr Robinson]”.
And the third reported that “[t]he anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate has called out UKIP’s lead spokesman for Wales [Mr Robinson] after he told an election hustings meeting that he admires the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.” It described Mr Robinson as “a notorious far-right activist”
Mr Robinson said the first article was inaccurate as the Facebook post made in relation to the simulated sex act had not been made by him, but by another individual who had access to the account. He also said all three stories breached Clause 1 as he had never been a member of a “far right” organisation.
Nation.Cymru did not accept the stories breached the Code, or that it was inaccurate to refer to the complainant as far-right, describing the current-day version of UKIP as “a fringe far-right party with a tiny membership”.
It said that Mr Robinson had posted derogatory messages about Muslims on his Twitter account and retweeted a message labelling migrants ‘parasites’ who should be ‘arrested’ or ‘shot’ to ‘stop the invasion’”.
In its ruling, IPSO’s Code Committee said that in circumstances where the complainant co-owned the Facebook account where the post had appeared, it was not inaccurate, misleading, or distorted. There was therefore no breach of Clause 1.
On the issue of whether Mr Robinson could be described as “far right,” the Committee considered that expressing an opinion during a general election campaign on where someone might be considered to fall on the political spectrum is largely subjective.
Mr Robinson had also claimed that the articles and comments were prejudicial against him. However given the complainant had not said that he had been discriminated against on the basis of a protected characteristic, there was no breach of Clause 12.
The complaint was not upheld, and the full ruling can read here.