Dog attack victim's father has partial win against TVNZ

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has partially upheld a complaint against TVNZ by the father of dog attack victim Carolina Anderson.

John Anderson complained that an item on TVNZ's Sunday programme had condoned the actions of the two men who pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the attack on Carolina in an Auckland park in January.

He claimed that part of the item which raised questions about the prosecution case was unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair.

The authority did not uphold his complaints about balance and fairness, but said the programme did have two inaccuracies.

TVNZ had already acknowledged it showed incorrect pictures of the park where the attack had occurred.

Mr Anderson said the programme said dogs on Coxs Bay Reserve had to be on leads, then showed dogs off the lead at Grey Lynn Park the day after the attack at the other park.

The authority said the programme also included a police flyer of a dark-coloured dog and juxtaposed the flyer with a picture of the light fawn dog responsible for the attack.

The authority agreed with Mr Anderson that by not pointing out that the flyer said the dog shown was not necessarily the same colour as the dog which attacked Carolina, the item breached the broadcasting standard for accuracy.

Mr Anderson had made it clear to TVNZ that he did not want to take part in the programme, the authority said.

But he complained that TVNZ did not try to contact him after it was told the dog owners were considering applying to change their guilty pleas.

TVNZ said that was an "11th-hour development", and it understood Mr Anderson was concerned that Sunday might jeopardise an exclusive deal with a women's magazine and a television production company making a documentary for TVNZ.

- NZPA