The UK Daily Star , a tabloid, wrongly reported that “hundreds of Syrians [were] arrested in the UK for rape and child abuse.”
In fact, the figure should have referred to all crimes including rape and child abuse. The headline has since been changed “Hundreds of Syrians arrested in the UK for offences including rape and child abuse.” The July 31 story reported that “897 people of Syrian heritage were held in England and Wales” in 2015.
A woman named Elizabeth Hubbard complained to UK press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation about the article’s inaccurate headline. After IPSO got involved, the Star acknowledged it was a “misleading” headline, published a correction and fixed the headline.
The site published a correction Aug. 10, reading:
“This article was amended on 10 August 2016. The headline originally said ‘Hundreds of Syrians arrested for rape and child abuse in the UK.’ In fact whilst hundreds of Syrians have been arrested for criminal offences in England and Wales the majority of the offences that Syrians were arrested for was immigration violations, but there were other serious crimes. For example, in London 238 Syrians were arrested including two for rape and seven for sex offences. The original headline was inaccurate and has been changed. “
iMediaEthics has written to the paper for comment.