[vitty]

I wrote the story. Here's what happened:


I was having a regular phone chat with Brendan Shiel about Huncoat happenings.

He mentioned the background to this land and said flytipping and other activities were going on and that the council had agreed to put up a gate in October.

Yet the gate wasn't up, he said - so where was it?

He mentioned the site may have been referred to on the internet. I did a Google search, found the website and we quoted it in the article.

In the meantime, I got a council comment on their intention to put up the gate in the next few weeks.

I submitted the story, which included background on resident's/councillors attempts to get a gate.

The editor read it and asked me for more background. He asked me to have another go at it and to change the angle from the gate to the sexual activity, with a bit more detail from the website content.

Residents didn't have any involvement until I called one of them and asked for his opinion. He said it wasn't pleasant people were doing these things. We didn't use his quotes because of lack of space.

We got a police statement, and they advised us not to use the website content, because it may attract people there for the wrong reasons.

All content was included at the discretion of the editor.

I'm glad to see it's provoked so much debate and you all bought the paper.