On Tuesday we published a story claiming that the victim of a fatal road collision had been arrested earlier on the day of the crash for suspected drunk driving but had passed the breathalyser test.

On Wednesday, after learning that the Police had no record of such a test and that the victim, Henry Corea, was a diabetic who did not drink alcohol, we retracted the story and apologised.

While the information came from a usually reliable source, we accepted full responsibility and acknowledged that it was a very bad mistake and we should have done better.

To compound matters, yesterday's newspaper did not contain the recently redesigned funerals and memorials page and instead featured a page called "Visiting Bermuda''.

Every Thursday for the past four summers, The Royal Gazette has published several hundred extra newspapers which are flown to the US and given to passengers boarding cruise ships headed to the Island that weekend.

These newspapers are aimed at encouraging cruise visitors to buy the newspaper in Bermuda and to introduce them to some of the Island's attractions.

For that reason, we substitute the funerals page with the Visiting Bermuda page after the newspapers sold within the Island have been printed. This is done on the rationale that most people visiting the Island will not have strong personal interest in reading the funeral notices.

On Wednesday night, the Visiting Bermuda page was placed on the press for general circulation instead of for the US newspapers and the mistake was not picked up until after the newspapers were being distributed.

Procedures are being put in place to ensure that this does not happen again.

We apologise to all our readers, but most particularly to the families and friends of the people whose funeral, death and in memoriam notices were omitted. We are aware that this hardly suffices, but hope that you will accept that we most sincerely regret this mistake.

GIVING CREDIT EDT Giving credit "I like to keep the Press out. But sometimes it helps us to identify the problems that we have in society.'' Family Court Magistrate Carlisle Greaves made this statement on Wednesday after accepting that the Press had a right to attend Juvenile Court hearings provided that the accused are not identified.

In doing so, he put in a nutshell the reason the Press has the right to attend court proceedings -- and to cover the news in general.

It has not been given this right in order to humiliate or to embarrass people but to act as the eyes and ears of the public in ensuring that justice is being done and, as Mr. Greaves said, to identify problems in society.

Mr. Greaves deserves credit for changing his position.