We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays because we don't exist

Ian Fraser complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that Telegraph.co.uk breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays”, published on 25 May 2025.

The complaint was upheld, and IPSO required Telegraph.co.uk to publish this adjudication to remedy the breach of the Code.

The article – which appeared online only – reported on the impact increases in private school fees had had on a named couple and their three children.

The complainant said that the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1 because he did not believe the family referenced in the article existed.

While the publication accepted it had not taken due care over the accuracy of the article, it said it was satisfied any error had been rectified promptly and prominently.  It said the article was “expunged” from online and from its social media as soon as the issues in question arose. It added that it had become clear shortly after publication that there was an issue with the images, which had led to an internal investigation. It said the investigation revealed that the issues which arose stemmed from a failure to make pre-publication checks.

On 18 June, the publication published a standalone apology, in which it said it had “not been able to verify the details published”.

Given that the publication had indicated that it had lost confidence in the article as a whole, IPSO considered that, in such circumstances, there was sufficient information before it to find that the article was significantly inaccurate.

Publications are expected to demonstrate what steps they have taken not to publish inaccurate information – this shows compliance with the Editors’ Code, and a commitment to high editorial standards The publication had not provided any evidence of adequate pre-publication checks, and within hours of publication it had evidently been able to establish that it could not stand by the story.  In these circumstances, IPSO found that there was a serious failure to take care not to publish inaccurate information and a breach of Clause 1 (i). The Committee acknowledged that, given the unusual circumstances of the case, the publication could not identify each specific inaccuracy in the article and correct it; this followed from its earlier failure to take care. Nonetheless, the consequence was that the publication could not verify any of the remaining details in the article in a manner which would allow it to adequately correct the record in the manner required by the Code.

IPSO therefore did not consider that the publication of a correction was sufficient or appropriate to remedy the breach of the Code in this case, given the extent and seriousness of the breach and the difficulty of clarifying to readers the correct position. In such circumstances, IPSO required the publication of an adjudication.