Case Study 4: A Woman v The Independent

• An actress complains through her agent that a piece in a celebrity gossip column has intruded into her privacy
• The article reports that she has withdrawn from a theatre role because she has fallen pregnant
• It also says that she pulled out from a previous role because of a pregnancy and suggests that her "efforts to start a family are getting in the way of her career"
• The actress says the article intrudes into her privacy by announcing her pregnancy before she has even told her family, at that point the only people she has informed are her partner, her agent and the producer of the show
• A press release explaining her withdrawal referred only to an "unforseen circumstance"
• She subsequently suffers a miscarriage
• Initially the newspaper responds by saying that, while it regrets the distress the actress has suffered, its columnist had no reason to believe that the pregnancy was not public information
• It offers to consider a letter for publication in response to the article and says the item has been removed from its website
• When the PCC investigates, the newspaper apologises privately for revealing the pregnancy and also offers to publish an apology

Is this offer by the newspaper sufficient redress?