Helen Percy
The three-day wonder that was the media’s busy reaction to publication of the report of Leveson inquiry into press standards has passed. The sound of silence you hear now is deceptive – started by prime minister Cameron who, in advance of the report’s publication, said that he’d implement Leveson unless its findings were ‘bonkers’. It is the unmistakable noise of backsliding.
Noises off show the reluctance of some interested parties not to have a separate framework in Scotland – not necessary say the apologists for media power. Was there ever any real intent to restrain the media from its excesses? Judge for yourself in the coming weeks and months.
Last year I became involved in arguably one of the worst examples of media intrusion and manipulation to have unfolded in Scotland in the last 20 years. In deciding to publish the memoir of a former Church of Scotland minister, Helen Percy, it was difficult to avoid the conclusion (per our pre-publication press release):
Helen Percy’s treatment as a young woman in her mid-twenties could hardly have been more cruel. Being burned as a witch in days gone by was at least more instant and not a lifelong torture. Her story needs to be told. It is amazing how such harrowing experiences can be so beautifully written in a way which is full of energy and hope.
Amazing but not surprising. None of what the vast majority of the press printed and broadcast about Helen Percy’s case was true. It was a running example of why Lord Leveson was called into service – a press out of control and incapable of following even its own guidelines under a not so watchful eye of a toothless Press Complaints Commission. ‘Scandalous Immoral and Improper’, the Church of Scotland’s own charge against their employee, which was used as the title of her book, was prophetic of events that were to unfold.
Some facts which the country’s press have considered far too tiresome for publication since 1996:
Employed by the Church of Scotland as an associate minister in the parish of Kilry in Angus, Helen Percy had half-time responsibility as chaplain to nearby Noranside Prison and the remainder of her time she attended to the spiritual and pastoral needs of a rural congregation. In December 1995 she was subject to an unwanted sexual advance by a senior elder of the church as a result of which she became pregnant. She was then 27 years old.
For much of 1996 and 1997, and indeed periodically ever since right up to the present day, her life, personality, morals, and her job became of interest to a number of newspapers. She was accused of having had an adulterous affair. Her name became fair game for a succession of lurid, titillating, suggestive and grossly inaccurate headlines and articles. Her privacy was invaded by press agency photographers and reporters. Her private correspondence was published. She was subject to press invasions on her doorstep, pushed to comment, and told that if she did not they would ‘make it up anyway’.
Though it stretches my powers of tolerance beyond endurance, for the present purpose the part played by Helen Percy’s employer, the national church, needs to be left aside. Having been told by the church not to comment because of the impending ecclesiastical trial (while members of the same church were feeding the tabloids), she was doubly hampered. There was so much pre-trial publicity that a fair hearing was impossible. There was no evidence of an ‘affair’. The newspapers persisted in emblazoning her as a ‘scarlet woman’ on their front pages and she subsequently lost her job. She took action against the Church of Scotland and eventually as a result of a long legal process ending in a House of Lords ruling in 2006, she was awarded damages on the grounds of sexual discrimination by her employer.
Whenever her life has taken a new turn since that episode – however minor an event – reporters have used the ‘copy and paste’ method of regurgitating all the inaccuracies of the past, regardless of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission. The worst among many gratuitously contemptuous headlines was when she went as a volunteer to work with children who had been raped in South Africa: ‘Missionary Position for Randy Rev’.
More recently, she was accused of receiving council tax benefit to which she was not entitled. Despite being able to show that the payment had been made through official error, and not fraudulently (subsequently confirmed at a benefits tribunal held after the court hearing), she was intimidated by the newspapers to such an extent that she felt it was easier to plead guilty rather than attend a hearing at which she knew the press would be present in force. They were still present in force at the hearing at which she received an 18-month probation order.
In a submission as evidence to the Leveson inquiry last December Helen Percy wrote:
I am an advocate of press freedom as a vital part of a democratic society – but to hold the powerful to account and not to victimise those with neither friends in high places nor the means to initiate legal action to counter libel. Why should newspapers be able to print damaging remarks made by informants with impunity? What possible public interest is served?
Helen Percy is, of course, not alone in her experience of press intrusion and libel without any shred of evidence against them. The parents of Milly Dowler whose murdered daughter’s phone was hacked – David Cameron said he was hopeful that any new action about the press would pass the ‘Dowler test’ – he himself failed it within about 90 minutes of the Leveson Report’s publication; Gerry and Kate McCann who had been accused by the press of murdering their own missing daughter – surely a line of inquiry for investigating police and not for public prints; and indeed the Tommy and Gail Sheridan trial coverage by the tabloids and BBC Scotland are perhaps among the best-known examples.
The Guardian apart, press reaction to the prospect of any statutory control has been almost unanimous – it would be an attack on our freedom. Anyone who would seriously argue public interest in these cases above and in Helen Percy’s treatment is psychopathic. It would require not to have what are considered normal feelings in others. Either that or they are themselves a press mogul or a well-rewarded servant for one. All sense of natural justice argues against holding the innocent up to public ridicule before evidence and trial. Even though many of those victims of press intrusion have committed no crime, media interests demand that they have the right to victimise them in the interests of a free press. Which is nonsense.
The processes at work here were further indicated by Helen Percy in her words to Leveson:
There was one lone reporter who had the grace to speak to me at the height of the media frenzy in 1996 – surprisingly, from the Daily Record. Needless to say she did not last long in the job! Her name was Annie Brown and she was the one who told me, "They are getting away with this because you appear not to have great financial resources nor friends in high places".
If you’re not of independent means, in other words, beware. Sometimes with a lawless and feral press, you can’t make it up.
Yet media owners do not wish to be held accountable for this behaviour. They argue that they need to be free to make up this kind of fiction.
In the comment and appraisal surrounding the press inquiry, no serious voice has argued for state intervention in the running of newspapers. It contradicts all democratic instincts. Yet press coverage seeking to define the terms of debate has depicted the battle as one of defending press freedom. This is further distraction and obfuscation and further evidence why the press needs some controls.
But few politicians, devoid of principle and obsessed with dwindling voter interest, seem interested in standing up to media power. One view has sought to diminish the importance of print media – all their circulations are declining after all. It’s the electronic media that are worse. What passes for comment on blogs and Twitter is often just as bad or worse and in the interests of justice, the law will have to move in on electronic libel and incitement as well.
Derek Rodger is a publisher (Argyll Books) and was instrumental in founding the Scottish Review of Books
