A complaint was brought to the Press Ombudsman in connection with a court report published in the online edition of The Irish Times on 17 July 2019.

The report included an allegation that the man accused, a passenger in a taxi, called the taxi-driver a “n****r”, using the full spelling of the word.

The complainant contacted the newspaper to object to the publication of the word, saying that “as someone who has been called the N word, I’m hurt”.

He received a reply from The Irish Times which said “Thanks for bringing this to our attention. The error has been rectified”. The word complained of was amended to “n****r”.

However, the complainant was not satisfied without a public apology and brought a complaint to the non-statutory Press Ombudsman on the basis that Principle 8 (Prejudice) had been breached.

The complaint was dismissed by the Press Ombudsman, but upheld by the Press Council of Ireland on appeal.

The Press Council said the publication of the word “breached Principle 8 of the Code of Practice because it was likely to cause grave offence and that the context did not justify its use”.