I was pleased to see that the Suffolk Free Press has published a correction to its front page story of February 9th (‘You have to got to be Joking!’).
You had to look hard to find the correction, lost among the small news items on page 5, but at least it was there in black and white.
It turns out that a Chilton resident did not, as stated, ‘suffer at the hands of parking wardens’ in North Street car park on the previous weekend. In fact no ticket at all was issued to her on the Sunday in question.
I can see how the misunderstanding came about, but I do think that before trumpeting a story across the front page of a newspaper, it might be worth going to the trouble of checking the facts. The resident in question is not ‘ex directory’ and a quick phone call would have made it clear that the ticket was not issued ‘on Sunday’ as stated, but sometime in 2011 when the car park was ice free.
The paper has rightly apologised to the person concerned, but I feel that a similar expression of regret is due to Babergh. I particularly sympathise with our hard pressed parking wardens, who, as a result of the article, suffered abuse from the public.
It must have been a very slow week for the Free Press if this (non) story made the front page!
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