Press did not breach code in teacher case

The press complaints commission has ruled that payment offers to the families of child witnesses in the case of a teacher accused of indecency were not a breach of its conduct code.

Rules had not been broken because the approaches in the trial of Amy Gehring were to parents, not to the children, and were made after the boys had finished giving their evidence.

The PCC acted after a complaint from the Labour MP Clive Soley that the Sunday People, Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday had offered thousands of pounds to teenage witnesses. Five children, including those who were allegedly seduced by the biology teacher or were witnesses to Ms Gehring's allegedly inappropriate behaviour, admitted they had talked with the papers. Three of them said they had already agreed to exclusive story deals worth up to £10,000 apiece. Ms Gehring was eventually acquitted.

Mr Soley, a critic of the PCC, said: "The press should not be offering these kids money because it gives them an incentive to exaggerate the sexual content of their encounters."

But the PCC said the journalists had taken "every possible step" to ensure that any financial dealings did not interfere with the evidence. All the approaches were made after witnesses had given evidence and that none of the children was approached directly, but through their parents.

Their story was in the public interest: "The public was entitled to know the full story of what had happened ... The events happened in the wider context of a serious shortage of teachers which had forced the government to look abroad for supply teachers to fill posts."

The commission also noted that their story would not have been told without the offer of payment. The newspapers said the families had raised the issue of cash. "The commission was satisfied that newspapers had taken account of the terms of the code before approaches were made," it concluded.