Interpreters figure was wrong

At the Derby Evening Telegraph we have an ethos of admitting when we are wrong, no matter how difficult or embarrassing, it may be. We believe that our readers and users of our websites will trust us more if we are as open as possible.

Thus, I can tell you that yesterday’s first edition front page lead, was incorrect.

Our reporter believed she had heard Chief Constable Mick Creedon say, at a police authority meeting, that the force had spent half a million pounds in the last year on interpreters. The police contacted us at 11.30am today (Thursday) to tell us that he had said a quarter of a million pounds.

Immediately, we withdrew the story from the web with the intention of resubmitting the updated story. The story was relegated from the newspaper’s front page lead to page two and the editorial comment changed to another subject.

A full inquest was held into how the mistake was made. The reality is it was simple human error.

There was certainly no conspiracy or any attempt to over-hype a story.

I tell you this because some people had already posted comments which suggested that the story was the result of us following a political agenda, set by our sister paper, the Daily Mail.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We have never had any instruction from the Daily Mail on how to compose stories.

We did, however, believe that the public ought to know about the latest pressure on the police, both in financial terms. In our opinion column we did not comment on the merits of the Government immigration policy but on the need for those who reside in the country to learn English to take pressures off services like the police and schools.

That this pressure has not been recognised by Government makes this story of significant public interest, we still believe, despite the figure being considerably lower than we first reported.