Prince Harry loses complaint against Mail On Sunday over photos that ‘did not tell full story’

Prince Harry has lost his complaint against the Mail On Sunday over photos he posted on social media of African wildlife that “did not quite tell the full story”.

His objection centred around an article which reported a rhino, elephant and lion – that he put pictures of on his Instagram account – had been tranquilised and the elephant was also tethered as they were being relocated due to conservation projects.

The article last April reported the “pictures… don’t quite tell the full story” and the Duke of Sussex “notably avoided explaining the circumstances in which the images were taken”.

The paper included a photo of the elephant which Harry posted and then a wider crop of the image which showed a rope around its back legs.

The images, which the Sussex Royal Instagram account said were taken by Harry, were among a series of eight posted to highlight Earth Day.

The article reported the duke’s spokesman declined to discuss the photos, though sources denied the rope was deliberately edited out of the elephant picture, claiming instead “it was due to Instagram’s format”.

The prince then took his complaint about the article to IPSO, the regulator for the UK’s newspaper industry, arguing the publication breached clause one (accuracy) of the editors’ code of practice.

But the complaint was not upheld by IPSO.

The regulator concluded it was not clear from the images themselves that the animals had been tranquilised and tethered.

IPSO said the photo of the elephant had been cropped to edit out the animal’s tethered leg and the newspaper had demonstrated the image could have been edited differently.

It also said Harry accepted the album of photos could have been uploaded in a different format which would have made editing the photo unnecessary.

IPSO commented the “accompanying caption did not make the position clear or that the images had previously been published, unedited, in 2016. The position was not made clear simply as a result of the inclusion of the link to the website”.

It concluded: “In these circumstances, the committee did not consider that it was significantly misleading to report that the photographs posted on the complainant’s Instagram account did not quite tell the full story and that the complainant had not explained the circumstances in which the photographs had been taken.

“There was no breach of clause one.”

According to the regulator, Harry had said the article was inaccurate as it reported that, by not making clear the animals had been drugged and tethered, he had intentionally misled the public to give the impression he was a superior wildlife photographer who had captured the images in dangerous circumstances.

IPSO added: “He said that the images had been uploaded to his Instagram account in support of Earth Day to raise awareness, rather than as evidence of the complainant’s talent as a photographer, and the caption made clear that the animals were being relocated as part of conservation efforts.”

(c) Sky News 2020: Prince Harry loses complaint against Mail On Sunday over photos that ‘did not tell full story’