The correction to this Daily Telegraph ‘private school fees’ story just gets better and better and it’s an absolute belter

Not the first newspaper correction we’ve featured on these pages but surely it’s the most jaw-dropping. And definitely the most comprehensive because the only thing not true in it was basically … everything.

It was highlighted on Twitter by writer, commentator and academic @GerryHassan (who you can find here) and when he says it’s an ‘incredible retraction’ he is seriously not kidding.

An incredible retraction by the Daily Telegraph today. They have apologised for publishing an article last year headlined: “We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t afford to go on five holidays.” The entire story was fabricated; the family did not exist. pic.twitter.com/0WXyvCjPYp

— Gerry Hassan (@GerryHassan) March 2, 2026

Here’s the ‘family’ at the centre of the story, just in case you were wondering (we wrote about it when it originally appeared over here).

The Telegraph is on it. www.telegraph.co.uk/money/earn-3…

[image or embed]

— George Peretz KC (@georgeperetzkc.bsky.social) 25 May 2025 at 11:43

But the delight really is in the detail, which you can find in the press watchdog IPSO’s full finding here and which you can read in full below. It’s long, but so very worth it.

1.

Ian Fraser complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that Telegraph.co.uk breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays”, published on 25 May 2025.

2.

The complainant was one of a number of individuals who raised concerns about the article; in line with IPSO’s usual procedures, he was selected as IPSO’s lead complainant for the purpose of investigating the complaint.

3.

The article – which appeared online only – reported on the impact increases in private school fees had had on a named couple and their three children. The article included several photographs of a couple, and of children. The photographs were captioned: “[The couple’s] children’s school fees went from £55,000 to £70,000 almost overnight”; and “[The father] wants to give his children the best possible education he can – he feels a private school is the best way to do that”.

4.

The article reported that the father of the family was 38, and that the family were “originally from Singapore but also lived in New York for 20 years”. It also reported that they had gardener, who “used to come twice a month, but then he increased his costs from £230 a year to £245 a year”.

5.

The complainant said that the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1 because he did not believe the family referenced in the article existed. He said this was for several reasons. Firstly, he said that the photographs of the family included in the article were stock photographs from 2012 and 2014. The complainant said the images were sourced from picture agencies and provided links to the photo agency websites to support his position.

6.

The complainant also said: the timeline given in the article for the couple’s moves to New York and the UK did not make sense; there was no record online of the family; there was no indication in the article of where the family lived; and that it was implausible that the family would have “baulked” at paying their gardener an additional £15 per year.

7.

The publication removed the article seven hours after its initial publication and prior to being made aware of the complaint.

8.

On 18 June, nineteen days after the publication was made aware of the complaint, it published a standalone apology which read:

“On 25th May we published an online article ‘We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays’ which included stock photographs and not, as the article indicated, images of the family referred to in the article. In addition, we have not been able to verify the details published.

There has been public speculation the story was created using Artificial Intelligence; this is not the case. We apologise to our readers for these errors which should not have occurred.”

9.

A link to this apology appeared on the publication’s homepage for 24 hours. The apology was also published in its online Corrections & Clarifications column, which was permanently linked to at the bottom of its homepage. A link to the apology also appeared on the publication’s social media feed.

10.

On the same day, the publication wrote to the complainant and said the following:

“We have established that contrary to the impression given, the images shown were stock photographs and not pictures of the family the subject [sic] of the article. We have also not been able to independently verify the details published.

We are aware of speculation that the story was created using Artificial Intelligence; this is not the case. We apologise to you and have publicly apologised to all our readers for having published an article that did not meet the standards we and you expect from The Telegraph. We have reviewed our procedures to seek to avoid such an error ever happening again.”

11.

During IPSO’s investigation, while the publication accepted it had not taken due care over the accuracy of the article, it said it was satisfied any error had been rectified promptly and prominently. It said the article was “expunged” from its website and social media accounts as soon as the issues in question arose.

It added that it had become clear shortly after publication that there was an issue with the images, which had led to an internal investigation. Following this, “the team lost confidence in the article as a whole and immediately removed it from online”. It said the investigation revealed that the issues which arose stemmed from a failure to make pre-publication checks.

12.

As a result of this, the publication said that those involved in the article had been advised that “significant mistakes” had been made, and a reminder of best practice had been issued to all sections which dealt with case studies. It also said that in-person sessions were held with members of the relevant section “to reinforce not only what had gone wrong but the lessons that had to be learned and a reminder of best practice in respect of case studies.”

13.

In relation to the inaccuracies regarding the gardener, the publication said that this came about due to a subediting error and did not accord with what the case study had told the journalist.

14.

The complainant said the apology was published 24 days after the article was initially published, which he did not consider to be sufficiently prompt. He also did not consider the apology was sufficiently prominent, as it appeared online only. Further to this, he said that the apology did not explain how what appeared to be a “completely fabricated article” had come about.

15.

The publication said that the delay in publishing the apology was due to the fact it had conducted an “in depth and wide-ranging internal investigation” which included “interviewing 9 individuals”, some of whom were outside its organisation. The publication said that the investigation was further slowed as it may have raised potential legal and HR issues stemming from the publication of the article. The publication did not accept that the delay was an undue one and said that, in the circumstances, the apology had been offered promptly.

16.

During IPSO’s investigation, it asked the publication whether it could detail how the article had come to be published. The publication said it was not in a position to provide IPSO with further information about how the article came to be published, given this information related to internal and confidential investigations.

It added that, given it had already published an apology, it considered it had already taken the appropriate and necessary steps to remedy the breach of the Code, and declined to provide further information for the benefit of the IPSO’s Complaints Committee beyond what it had previously set out.

17.

This was an unusual case where a publication had undertaken internal inquiries in response to complaints and concluded that it could not verify any of the details of a published article. This called into question the accuracy of the entire article, which had been presented as an illustrative example of the real-world impact of a controversial government policy. This had resulted in the article being removed in its entirety hours after its publication.

18.

Citing obligations of confidentiality, the publication had not provided an account for how the article – which it had said, in its apology, it had not been able to “independently verify” – had been published.