Complaint
A report in the bulletin used the village of Westhumble in Surrey as an example of increasing drug-related crime in small towns and rural areas because of the expansion of county lines networks.Β A viewer complained that this gave a misleading impression of the nature and extent of drug-related crime in Westhumble.
Outcome
Most drug-related offences in Westhumble related to cannabis possession, and provided no basis for associating the issue with county lines activity.
Upheld
Further action
The UK Newsgathering team has been advised to make additional checks with the relevant police force when using publicly available crime data of this nature in future.