Australian Channel 7 published photographs of an innocent man, calling him guilty of kidnapping
Moreover, this was done afterFour-year-old Cleo Smith, who went missing 18 days ago, has been found safe and sound in a locked house in Carnarvon, Western Australia. The girl was kidnapped right from a tent during a family camping trip.
It was against the background of the discovery of the girl that channel "7"decided to show the public their "exclusive" by posting photographs of a certain Terrence Kelly. However, they did not take into account a few things: Kelly is a very common surname in Australia, and they did not spell the name Terrence at all. The channel had to apologize, but the affected young man has yet to find out how much damage the channel has done to his reputation.
Local News Agency Ngaarda Mediawrote about the confusion surrounding investigative journalism via Facebook and explained that the unjustly accused man - who is actually called Terry Flowers, but sometimes called Terry Kelly because that is his mother's name - was completely beside himself with the false accusation.
In a tweet, Channel 7 explains that the manwas seen buying diapers even though he was known to have no children. And although this story from a witness seems to be true, in the photos that the channel used was a completely different person.
Australian agency SBS News notes thatthe innocent man was happy when he learned that Cleo Smith had been rescued, but he suffered a panic attack when a relative told him that his picture was everywhere as "the man who took the girl." The man is now in the hospital.
“What they (the journalists - Hightech) did wasimmediately went to look for the suspect on Facebook. The first person they saw was me, they uploaded my photos to social media and spread them all over the world, not just in Australia, it's all over the world, ”Flowers said, adding that he is exploring the possibility of legal action against the media company.
We add that the Australian police are already officiallyaccused the real suspect, 36-year-old Terence Darrell Kelly, of kidnapping. Kelly was arrested on a street in the city after police broke into the State Housing Commission's house where he lived and found Cleo playing with toys inside.
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