The Sun has corrected a story which claimed a Muslim train driver went through a red light and crashed because he had been fasting for 15 hours.
The story was headlined “Ramadan train driver in crash” and was published on 20 August. It followed a derailment at Paddington station the previous June.
The correction follows a complaint to press watchdog IPSO which was upheld (full adjudication here).
The correction said: “In a story ‘Ramadan Train Driver in Crash’ we implied that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch said the cause of the derailment at Paddington was that the driver had been fasting during Ramadan.
“In fact they were unable to conclude that fasting was a factor in the crash on evidence available, although they observed that there is research showing that fasting can affect people’s concentration levels.”
Complainant Miqdaad Versis, a management consultant who is assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “Creating a link to the faith of the driver and the Islamic act of fasting without any evidence is totally unacceptable.
“In today’s environment where Islamophobia and bigotry have become more and more normalised, I hope the Sun will avoid creating stories that unfairly depict Muslims as the ‘bad guy’ and will introduce safeguards to deter future inaccuracies.”
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