The Press Complaints Commission has ruled that the Mail on Sunday breached the editors’ code by reporting on the location of James Bond actor Daniel Craig’s new home.
The watchdog said clause three (privacy) of the code meant newspapers should not “gratuitously identify the homes of individuals who might be exposed to specific security problems”.
The Mail on Sunday published a story in October with the headline: “£4m home where Bond will find a quantum of solitude”.
It reported on Craig buying an apartment in North London, and featured a picture of the building.
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The PCC said Daniel Craig had previously had to take extra security measures against unwanted attention from fans, and had expressed concern for the safety of his partner and child following the story.
Craig complained that the nature of the house and its colour would make it easily recognisable to fans, and could therefore jeopardise his privacy.
The paper argued that it had avoided printing any information about the address of the apartment, and the area referred to in the article covered a large part of North London.
However, the PCC ruled that the paper printed too much information about the apartment’s location, and ran the risk of identifying the building without justification.
The commission acknowledged that the Mail on Sunday had removed the story from its website and offered to apologise to Craig and not republish the details in the article.
It said it accepted that the steps taken by the paper were a suitable remedy.
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