Correction was required

The Australian Press Council has considered a complaint by Allan Hough about a front-page article headed ‘Gay slurs led to suicide’ in the Sydney Star Observer on 23 June 2010. The opening paragraph of the article, which reported the outcome of a coroner’s inquest into an apparent suicide, read: “Homophobic taunts played a significant role in the suicide of a 14-year-old boy, a coronial inquest has found.”

Mr Hough complained to the Council that the heading and article were inaccurate because the coronial inquest did not find that homophobic taunts played the role alleged and because it incorrectly implied that the boy was homosexual. He said that, “as a member of the gay community”, he believed that the boy was “opportunistically appropriated for gay self-interest” by the article. He requested that a retraction be printed.

The newspaper responded that the evidence of bullying, including cyber-bullying, which was presented to the inquest was homophobic in nature (including reference to a MySpace website using the words “gay” and “faggot” in respect of the boy). It said that the inquest heard evidence that the boy moved away from Sydney “in a bid to escape the homophobic taunts” to which he was being subjected. The newspaper said that “given we are a gay and lesbian publication, this is clearly the most significant point of interest to our readership”. It denied that it had claimed homophobic bullying was the only cause of the suicide, had violated the boy’s memory or had claimed that the boy was gay.

Having examined the inquest findings by the NSW Deputy State Coroner, it was clear to the Council that he did not nominate homophobia as a contributing factor to the boy’s suicide. In findings of more than 10,000 words, he referred to “gay” and “faggot” only, which was in the context of postings on the MySpace site, and said that these quotes were “hurtful and spiteful”, not homophobic. It was clear also that the boy was popular with girls and that one of the boys involved in his repeated physical bullying was jealous of his relationship with a very popular girl at their school. The hurtful quotes were posted by a third party on the girlfriend’s MySpace page, questioning “why you go back out with that faggot”. The Deputy Coroner referred only to physical bullying at the hands of a gang of “Islanders” at his previous Sydney school, not to homophobic taunts.

The Council considered that the article was clearly inaccurate in its assertions about the findings of the inquest. The article also was likely to be interpreted by many readers as implying that the boy was homosexual, which is inaccurate because there was no evidence to that effect, let alone compelling evidence of a kind, which might have justified its inclusion. The Council considered that the heading and article were irresponsible and that, once the complaint was made by Mr Hough, the newspaper should have published a correction and apology.