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July 20, 2006updated 22 Nov 2022 8:18pm

Independent on Sunday pays damages after photo error

By Press Gazette

The Independent on Sunday has been forced to pay libel damages and issue an apology following a mistake in a picture caption.

The paper used a file picture of the actor Harry Capehorn (pictured) to illustrate a front-page story on 23 April, headlined "The Asbo kids". But it failed to clearly state that the picture had been posed by a model.

Capehorn, who has appeared in the soap opera Family Affairs, accepted undisclosed libel damages and a public apology at the High Court over use of the photograph, which he claimed could have branded him as having been the subject of an Antisocial Behaviour Order in the context in which the paper used it.

Capehorn's counsel, Korieh Duodu from David Price solicitors, told the court that his client had posed for the photograph six years ago when he was 16, during an arranged photo shoot.

He said the intention was that the picture would be used as publicity material for the Children's Society and that wherever it was used it would be accompanied by confirmation that Capehorn had posed as a model.

Duodu said: "Regrettably the photograph complained of in these proceedings was not accompanied by such a statement, and many readers have recognised Mr Capehorn and could have understood him to have been issued with an Antisocial Behaviour Order."

He said the truth was Capehorn had never been issued with an Asbo or engaged in behaviour which would warrant the granting of such an order.

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The paper published an apology two weeks ago in its correction column, but Mr Duodu said that it had also agreed to pay an "appropriate sum" in compensation to Mr Capehorn.

Matt McKenzie, solicitor for the IoS, told the judge: "The article was not intended to suggest that Mr Capehorn has ever been issued with an Asbo and any such allegation would be entirely false. The defendant published an immediate correction and again today offers its sincerest apologies to Mr Capehorn."

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