Former footballer Stan Collymore has suffered a humiliating defeat after the Press Complaints Commission ruled that they would not uphold his complaint against the Sun. Collymore accused the paper of publishing an “inaccurate and misleading” article in January this year about his infamous violent attack on former girlfriend Ulrika Jonsson, claiming the Sun “had seriously misrepresented” him, “had misled readers” and had also “engaged in harassment”. The PPC has ruled none of Collymore’s complaints have been upheld, and that there was no breach of the Editor’s Code of Practice.

On the inaccuracy complaint:

“As the article made clear that the complainant had compared his single, “open handed” strike with the harm which may have been caused by a more brutal attack, the Commission concluded that readers would not have been misled by the headline or about the basis for the newspaper’s view that the complainant had sought to “justify” the attack. There was no breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code on these points.”

On the alleged harassment:

“It was evident that a reporter had remained outside the house for a considerable period of time, but he had had no contact with the complainant or any member of the household during this period, and no request had been made for him to leave. It did not appear that he had acted in an intimidating manner and, once he had spoken to the complainant and been informed he did not wish to comment, the reporter had not persisted in questioning him… There was no breach of Clause 4 of the Code.”

You can read the original Sun story in full here…