Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

When the Daily Mail got the wrong man

Nessuno | 01.02.2005 00:04 | G8 2005 | London

Journalist Mark Covell talks to Roy Greenslade about his ordeal at the hands of the tabloid, the Daily Mail.

Monday January 24, 2005
The Guardian

Mark Covell suffered twice over at the anti-capitalist demonstrations at the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001. His first ordeal was physical: Covell, a journalist, was so savagely beaten by the Italian police that he lost consciousness, suffering serious injuries which included multiple broken ribs, a collapsed lung and internal bleeding. He was taken to hospital where he was given a blood transfusion and a chest drain was inserted to remove fluid from a lung. He was heavily sedated and his room was placed under armed guard.

Covell's second ordeal was journalistic. The day after the assault he awoke to find a man and a woman in his room. In his drugged state, he assumed the personable woman to be from the British embassy and therefore answered her questions, including the name, address and phone number of his mother. But he said he became suspicious when the man asked to take a picture of him and, at that point, the woman explained that she was Lucie Morris, a Daily Mail reporter. It transpired that the man was Nick Holt, a Mail photographer. Covell immediately asked them to leave.

Later that day Covell's mother, Janet, received a call from Morris at her home near Reading. She had no idea her son was in Italy, let alone that he had been injured. Morris told her to expect a visit from a Mail reporter and a shocked Mrs Covell soon found herself answering the door to two journalists who, she said, "kept trying to get me to say negative things about Mark". They also asked her for pictures of her son which, in her confused and distressed state, she handed over.

Advertiser links
Health - Weight Watchers
Discover the biggest change at Weight Watchers in years....

weightwatchers.co.uk

Health 4U - Vitamins and Minerals Online
Health4U - tax-free vitamins, minerals and supplements...

health4u.je

Ocado - Devoted to Your Shopping
Online supermarket and health food shop in partnership with...

ocado.com
Little did the Covell family realise the outcome of those interviews. The next day's Daily Mail front page was headlined "Armed guard on Briton who led rioters" with a picture of Mark at a family wedding, and inside there were two more pictures of Mark as a child. The story, under Morris's byline, accused Covell of "helping to mastermind" the Genoa riots by running "computer systems used to co-ordinate attacks ... by anarchist groups".

It detailed his injuries, mentioned his outrage at the police action and in cluded quotes from Mrs Covell in which she was alleged to have referred to her son as a "social misfit" who had "socialist ideals" with which she disagreed.

The central thrust of the story, that Covell had led a riot or even had anything to do with its organisation, was wildly inaccurate. He was operating computers for Indymedia, a journalistic collective of environmentalists which despises "the corporate media" but which took no part in the violent confrontations with police. Covell, who did not even attend the street protests, was one of many innocents attacked by the Italian police that night and he will soon be appearing as a witness in Italy following the prosecution of several policemen for their actions.

In the aftermath of the Mail story Covell was in no fit state, physically or mentally, to do much about the paper's character assassination, nor to contest what he believed to be an intrusion into his privacy. He spent 12 days in the San Martino hospital and it was some time before he felt able to instruct lawyers. When we met, months later, he was clearly still suffering from his injuries - he had few teeth left - and appeared highly strung. But he was plainly sincere and deeply upset at his treatment by the Mail. He was, he explained, too poor to sue for libel but his lawyers did advise him that he had cause for other actions for which he could obtain legal aid.

They pointed to a possible breach of his privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights and a similar article of the Italian constitution, not to mention a contravention of data protection laws. Morris appeared to have breached three clauses of the editors' code of practice, having invaded Covell's privacy, intruded into his grief and shock, and entered a hospital bedroom, where he surely had a reasonable expectation of privacy, without permission.

When asked for a formal response to Covell's allegations about Morris, the Mail's then managing editor, Lawrence Sear, said he knew nothing about them and that they seemed far-fetched. Morris, when contacted, said she was on her way to her doctor's and would call back. She did not, and further attempts to reach her failed. But Morris did explain herself, by email, to another inquiring journalist, arguing: "I went to great lengths, and [took] personal risks, in getting to Mr Covell's hospital bedside . . . so he could put his side across which, to me as a professional, objective journalist, is vital."

She did not say how her "objective" journalism had resulted in Covell being wrongly accused of leading a riot, nor how she managed to convince the police to allow her into his hospital room. Given Covell's fragile state, his lawyer's concern about unhelpful publicity and the Mail's tight lips, the story remained untold for a time. But Covell, who eventually went to another lawyer, fought on. He was particularly eager to win an apology on behalf of his mother who had contracted a virulent form of cancer (and is now in a hospice).

The Daily Mail's senior executives, legal advisers and Morris herself defended their actions, arguing that the hospital interview was justified in order to highlight that Covell had been badly beaten. They refused to acknowledge that Covell had a worthwhile case but, such was the force of his argument and the obvious central falsehood of the Mail's story, that the paper decided it could not face a court case.

After he was forced to issue proceedings, the Mail suddenly agreed to pay Covell damages and his legal costs and, in a major climbdown, even acceded to his request for a formal letter of apology. Its contents must remain private: the letter can be shown only to Covell, his close family and to the courts in Italy where the Mail article has previously been brandished by lawyers representing the police who have sought to undermine Covell's credibility. The letter will help him in his claim for injuries.

If Covell were to reveal the contents of the letter (to this newspaper, for instance) he could be sued by the Mail for the return of his damages and costs, which are expected to reach £40,000. Covell is giving a substantial amount of his damages to his mother and to charity. His concern all along has been with clearing his name rather than receiving money.

Covell's solicitor, Louis Charalambous, who has considerable experience of dealing with newspapers, says: "The conduct of the Daily Mail and Lucie Morris is the worst example of its kind I've ever come across."

So what has the Mail to say for itself? The Mail's apology was written by Charles Garside, the new managing editor, who was not with the paper when the story appeared. He says: "The Daily Mail highlighted Mr Covell's plight to his family and the British authorities and advised his mother to get in touch with the Foreign Office. If there was a hurt, it was completely inadvertent and, indeed, it was one we did not know about for nearly three years. My letter to Mr Covell and his mother was private and should remain so".

Morris did enter into online correspondence over Covell's distress in August 2001, when there was also substantial web traffic about the incident, but the paper did not regard this as a formal, legal complaint. But perhaps this saga does illustrate why anger about the "corporate media" is so prevalent.

Nessuno

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. you forgot to cut the ads friend — stinky
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech