The Apple Daily yesterday blamed an 'innocent mistake' by a junior reporter for information it published that led to a murder trial being halted.
A report in the newspaper in October last year identified the defendant in a murder trial as a paedophile, a fact not known to the trial jury, the Court of First Instance was told yesterday.
During a committal hearing for contempt of court, Mr Justice Thomas Gall was urged to impose a fine on the paper but not to punish the editor-in-chief, Ip Yut-kin.
Gerard McCoy, SC, representing both the newspaper and Mr Ip, said the inexperienced reporter had included in the article that the accused was a paedophile. This was not disclosed by the prosecution during the trial, but found out later by the reporter in other newspaper clippings.
Apple Daily felt aggrieved as the contemptuous content was also contained in some other papers, which did not face any committal proceedings, Mr McCoy said.
But he added that the paper was not seeking to eliminate its liability, rather it acknowledged full responsibility at the start of the case.
'The mistake has caused unnecessary distress to the victim's family, which had to give evidence again since the trial was scrapped,' Mr McCoy said.
