Nicci Heywood against the North Canterbury News
Case Number: 3808
Council Meeting: 1 December 2025
Decision: Upheld
Publication: North Canterbury News
Principle: Accuracy, Fairness and Balance
Ruling Categories:
Accuracy
Balance, Lack Of
Unfair Coverage
Overview
1. On 9 October 2025 the North Canterbury News (NCN) published a front-page article entitled Council reviews processes after dog attack. The article includes a description of an attack by one neighbour’s dog, which jumped a fence and made an attack on another neighbour’s dog and its owner. The article quotes as a single source dog owner Sarah Quigley, who is critical of Hurunui Council responses to this and other dog control issues. Nicci Heywood has complained that the article described only one side of the dog attack story and gave an unverified and inaccurate account of the facts. Ms Heywood has cited breaches of Media Council Principles of accuracy, fairness and balance, privacy, and comment and fact. The complaint is upheld on Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance.
The Article
2. The article covers concerns about dog control issues in the area, the adequacy of current national and local Council rules and controls and briefly describes the attack on Sarah Quigley and her dog. It goes on to report Ms Quigley’s critical comments on the Hurunui Council response to this incident and in general to threatening dogs, and the fact that the Council Chief Executive now says he will be reviewing Council processes on dealing with dog incidents. The article also covers the steps taken to deal with the specific attack and says the Council considers them satisfactory.
The Complaint
3. The complainant, Ms Heywood, felt the article was defamatory and inaccurate. Despite being referenced many times in the article, the complainant says she was not approached for comment before the article was published. Although neither names nor the street is mentioned, in a small community it would be immediately apparent to readers who the article refers to. Ms Heywood says as a result their family is already experiencing reputational damage. She complains on grounds of accuracy, fairness and balance, privacy, and comment and fact.
4. She says the article misleads the public into believing that the incident was much more serious than it was and that privacy was breached because the small size of the community meant she was easily identifiable; the article relied heavily on the assumptions and assertions of one individual source. No effort was made by NCN to check with other sources, resulting in a distorted and unfair portrayal of events.
The Response
5. The Editor of the North Canterbury News, and also the author of the article, Robyn Bristow, responded that the story outlined fears Sarah Quigley had for dog owners, walking their dogs in the Hawarden-Waikari area and in which she expressed criticism of the Hurunui District Council’s response to an incident. It was not aimed at, nor derogatory of, the complainant and was focused on dog control practices. As the story was not aimed at the neighbours and stated they had fully complied with animal control’s requests, no need was seen to run a response from them in the original article. After being contacted by the owners of the dog involved in the attack, the editor agreed to run an unreserved apology in bold type; along with the neighbours’ response, which was received on 13 October and published on 16 October on page 2.
The Discussion
6. In her complaint Nicci Heywood has covered a range of background issues and explained a number of circumstances about the ongoing dispute between her and her neighbour. The Media Council must, however, confine itself to matters raised which are relevant to Media Council Principles. For clarity’s sake we also provide a very brief outline of the timetable of how we believe the issues evolved.
7.
a. On 21 July Ms Heywood’s dog jumped her fence and briefly attacked Ms Quigley and her dog who were walking by.
b. By 26/27 July Ms Heywood states that work was completed to raise the fence on her property.
c. On 9 October the NCN published a report (the subject of Ms Heywood’s complaint) on the dog incident and on Ms Quigley’s critical comments
about the council response, including, incorrectly, that only after persistence from her had the fence been raised.
d. On 10 October Ms Heywood wrote an email of complaint to the editor, pointing out a number of matters in the story she said were untrue
and asking why she had not been approached for balancing comment before the article was published.
e. Later on 10 October the editor responded saying she would publish Ms Heywood’s response.
f. On 12 October Ms Heywood said to the editor that she did not consent to her name being published.
g. On 16 October, on page 2, the NCN published an apology to Ms Heywood and reprinted much of the latter’s explanatory email about the
incident, giving her views of correct facts, timing and circumstances.
h. On 23 October the NCN published a further apology, this time to Ms Quigley, for some of the content in the 16 October article which was
based on Ms Heywood’s email.
8. Media Council Privacy Principle (2) requires that “everyone is normally entitled to privacy of person, space and personal information and these rights should be respected by publications. Nevertheless, the right of privacy should not interfere with publication of significant matters of public record or public interest….”. In this article the NCN legitimately followed up a matter of some public interest, which had Council involvement, in relation to the control of dangerous dogs in Hurunui. The complainant was not mentioned by name in the first article, although we accept that she may have been identifiable to neighbours. However, in this case we do not believe the complaint reaches the level of a breach of privacy, and that freedom of the media to report on matters of public importance must have greater influence.
9. Comment and Fact Principle (4) states that “A clear distinction should be drawn between factual information and comment or opinion.” This article was presented as news and not comment. Its flaws lie in the way it was handled as a news piece and are dealt with below. The Council does not believe it can be considered an opinion article and therefore makes no finding on the comment and fact aspect of the complaint.
10. Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance is relevant to this article and complaint. The Principle states that “Publications should at all times be bound by accuracy, fairness and balance and should not deliberately mislead or misinform readers by commission or omission…..”. The history of this article and the complaint clearly reflect the dangers of relying on a single source of information about an incident involving others and their interests and reputation and the need to balance information from both sides. The NCN has printed an apology and an alternative version of events according to the complainant (then had to apologise again to Ms Quigley when she was unhappy with the later article based on information from Ms Heywood). There were a number of differing versions of events in the original NCN article, especially the date of the raising of the height of the fence. The failure to consult with the dog’s owner that jumped the fence and bit the other dog’s owner, Ms Heywood, about the attack incident was a mistake that should not have been made, (and the nature of it was repeated when the alternative account from the complainant was published).
11. NCN published an apology, there was publication of alternative facts, and this ameliorates the seriousness of the complaint. However, the Council finds that the whole process surrounding this article was unsatisfactory. This all stems from the initial story being unbalanced, unfair and in some respects inaccurate about the complainant. The correction appears to have then slanted the other way. These problems are unlikely to have arisen if there had been a properly balanced story in the first place. Reasonable efforts were needed before publication to give the other side of the story. On balance, and despite the apology to the complainant, the Council finds the North Canterbury News in breach of Principle (1).
Decision: The complaint is upheld under Principle (1).
Council members considering the complaint were Hon Raynor Asher (Chair), Hank Schouten, Rosemary Barraclough, Tim Watkin, Guy MacGibbon, Scott Inglis, Deborah Morris, Ben France-Hudson, Jo Cribb, Judi Jones, Marie Shroff, Alison Thom, Richard Pamatatau