At first glance the front page of the April 28 edition of the Ceredigion Herald looks like any other local paper.

“Pervert teacher ‘will be jailed'” reads the headline, alongside a picture of Gordon Fleming, who last month admitted indecently assaulting 24 young girls.

But closer inspection of the photograph reveals something is amiss. Fleming’s head is strangely fuzzy and his ear oddly translucent.

In fact, his face doesn’t appear to belong to his body at all.

Instead Fleming’s face has been copied from a photograph taken by a staff photographer at the Cambrian News, another local paper in Wales, flipped horizontally and then photoshopped onto the body of a convicted murderer.

Cambrian News reporter Chris Betteley spotted the manipulation and tweeted the front page alongside the original photo.

“Want to nick Cambrian News pic but worried they’ll notice? Easy! Just flip the face and photoshop it on another body. No one will ever know.”

Thomas Sinclair, editor of the Ceredigion Herald, told Journalism Matters that none of his staff would be “daft enough” to have taken the image without permission or to have edited it.

He said the paper had bought the photo from a regular contributor for £20 (plus VAT) and then published it unaltered.

Mr Sinclair said: “I’ve just spoken to the boys. The photograph was supplied to us by someone who sends us photos quite regularly.

“I’ve seen the original photograph on the email and I’m satisfied that the photograph that has appeared in the paper hasn’t been altered in any way at all.”

Mr Sinclair then altered his position, stating only that his paper had not edited the image.

“I’ve received an email with the picture on it that has come directly from the person who sends us photos regularly,” he said.

“What I’m saying to you is our paper hasn’t changed that image or altered it in any way.”

When Journalism Matters asked to see the email containing the image, Mr Sinclair said he would “think about it. Maybe, possibly.”

He later emailed Journalism Matters to reiterate that his paper had “published the photograph, unaltered, in the format that we received it”.

Mr Sinclair said he was preparing to take legal action against the Cambrian News for an unrelated matter.

“We believe that you are investigating this on their behalf and, having taken legal advice, we are not prepared to comment on this any further at this time,” he said.

Mr Sinclair is the owner of the Herald series of papers, launched in July 2013, in south west Wales.

Weeks after launch the Pembrokeshire Herald published an advert for Enterprise: Rent-A-Car that included the phrase “cock-sucking”. Mr Sinclair claimed the paper had been sabotaged.

In August 2013 editor Bruce Sinclair quite after the paper printed a column criticising the Western Telegraph and its news editor. He had tried to prevent the article from being published but was overruled by Thomas Sinclair (no relation).

In October 2016, Thomas Sinclair was fined for having a “cavalier approach” to court reporting, after he admitted publishing the name of a youth who had appeared before magistrates.

In addition to identifying the boy, who had crashed a fishing boat, the court was told of an editors note in which Mr Sinclair stated he was aware it was illegal to publish the 17-year-old’s name but he had chosen to do so anyway.

On Friday Mr Sinclair will discover whether he is guilty of breaching the Sexual Offences Act 1992 after an article in the Ceredigion Herald appeared to identify the victim of a sex crime.

UPDATE: The original photo on which Fleming’s head was superimposed is of killer Gary Fisher, who stabbed his daughter to death in Cardigan, West Wales, in August 2009.

The photo, which was used by Mail Online in 2010, was taken by local photographer Dimitris Legakis of Athena Pictures, who did not give permission for the image to be used.

Mr Sinclair called Journalism Matters on Tuesday afternoon and said he now “believes the photo [on the front page] is quite blurry” and is trying to contact the person who sold it to the paper.