'Stupid and Naïve'
Confidential information relating to the Home Secretary's son has been acquired by a senior reporter for Oxford's independent student newspaper, the Cherwell, and divulged to a national newspaper. Criticism has been levelled at both the Cherwell reporter and the student originally responsible for leaking the confidential information.
Condemnation of unprincipled reporting was reiterated by OUSU VP (Welfare) Alice Hodgson, who said to the Student "there is no excuse for it, the principle of student privacy should be one which is inviolable."
The private information was initially passed to Matt Brindley, Editor of the Cherwell, by prominent fees non-payer Laura Paskell-Brown who was fronting a stall at Freshers' Fair for SAFE, the anti-fees organisation.
William Straw, a first year PPE student and son of the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, had approached the stall and signed up to receive further information about the anti-fees campaign.
Paskell-Brown later allowed Matt Brindley, co-editor, of the Cherwell, to take the information sheet away from the stall and make a photocopy of William Straw's signature. A source at a leading national paper confirmed on Tuesday that they had received a copy of the SAFE document.
When asked if he had passed the photocopied form to a national newspaper Brindley refused to comment having earlier denied receiving any payment for the document.
Commenting on her actions, Paskell-Brown told the Oxford Student "I was stupid and naive to give him the sheet. He certainly knows how to get stuff out of me."
Jon Worth, chair of SAFE, ridiculed Paskell-Brown's off-hand treatment of such highly sensitive material: "Those within the fees campaign may well begin to question her judgement."
Worth added that her actions might have severe repercussions for the anti-fees movement in Oxford: "This is damaging to the campaign. People will lose confidence in us if they feel their details are not being kept secret."
Eleanor Fletcher, a leading SAFE anti-fees campaigner, was more scathing. "I can't believe Laura would be so willing to disregard the rest of the fees campaign since we supported her so loyally last year." She explained that Laura was chosen to work at Freshers' Fair because "we thought a key figure from last years campaign would impress Freshers."
Since the incident it is understood that Paskell-Brown has apologised to William Straw by e-mail and that SAFE is also planning to make an apology.
Oxford journalists are no strangers to this sort of controversy. In Hilary Term 1998 two Cherwell news reporters were found photocopying minutes from a JCR meeting at Trinity College.
In doing so they broke college rules by entering the JCR with out permission to remove the minutes from a notice board.
At the time the JCR was investigating the possibility of corporate sponsorship and the actions of the journalists lead to Trinity JCR making a formal complaint against Cherwell's unprofessional behaviour.
7th Oct 1999