AMONG the most difficult and contentious stories any newspaper has to report on are those involving the break-up of marriages or relationships, particularly when they involve a third party.

Never was this proved more than by our story earlier this week about the vicar of Bishopstone, Father Tom Bodkin, who faces a permanent bar from the ministry after it was revealed he had been having an affair with a member of his congregation, Mrs Maureen Sievas.

The problem was not one of whether this was of public interest - a married vicar who strays from his wife is genuinely newsworthy because he is a public figure who can be reasonably expected to follow the teachings of his own church.

However, the Rev Canon William Pratt, communications officer for the Diocese of Chichester, takes us to task over our story in which we reported Mrs Sievas's views of how she had been treated by the church.

Her comments, first published in a newspaper the previous day, included that she felt she had been put on trial by the church, had been questioned for two hours about her involvement with Father Bodkin and been subjected to intimate questions that she found humiliating.

Canon Pratt disputes these, saying that she had agreed to meet the Bishop and the Archdeacon, and met the former for no more than 15 minutes and the latter for a further 15 to 20 minutes. She was, he admits, asked if she knew of any distinguishing marks on Father Bodkin, but volunteered other personal information.

It seems to me not so much an issue of accuracy here or indeed a complaint for the Argus. This was a very emotive and difficult issue for all involved. People interpret events differently, but this does not mean one of them had to be wrong.

The Argus's job in this is to try to represent everyone's views fairly and we have to take people's comments, to a large extent, at face value.

We try to report on these types of stories as sensitively and responsibly as possible and certainly do not seek to dig them out for we are not that sort of paper. Sometimes, though, we are obliged to report on them as in this case.

We proved that, I believe, with our sad report yesterday that Sally Becker and her partner Dr Duncan Stewart are to part. Sally, who is several months' pregnant, was not over the moon that we were publishing the story but gave her consent because we said we would treat it as sensitively as possible. And so we did.

READER E.C.Harmer of Brighton asks did we know our Did You Know? of March 17 was light years from the truth.

We said the furthest object in the universe visible to the naked eye was a giant rotting nebula at a distance of about 2,310,000 miles.

E.C. points out that the sun is 40 times that distance at 95,000,000 miles and tactfully suggests we must have meant light years. We did, of course.

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