There was no contact between Amanda Bailey and the Herald, the Press Council said.

The Press Council has ruled against the New Zealand Herald on a number of complaints over its controversial "ponytail gate" article.

The April 23 article identified waitress Amanda Bailey as the woman who spoke out against Prime Minister John Key's persistent pony-tail pulling and teasing at a cafe where she worked.

In a ruling released on Friday, the Press Council said it had received nine complaints, alleging the article was obtained under false pretences and printed without Bailey's consent.

The interview was made by conference call by Herald columnist Rachel Glucina with Bailey and her employers and included photographs of Bailey and her employers.

There was no contact between Bailey and the Herald and there was an apparent misunderstanding about the basis on which the article was to be published, the Press Council said. "Bailey subsequently made a further post on The Daily Blog, saying that she had discovered that she had had been misled about the nature of the NZ Herald interview and withdrawing any permission she may have given for publication."

The Press Council addressed the complaints in two parts.

The first dealt with complaints that the Herald acted in breach of several principles including subterfuge, privacy, confidentiality and accuracy, fairness and balance.

The article was based on the conference call by Glucina with Bailey and her employers and included photographs taken by a Herald photographer.

Glucina had contacted the cafe owners earlier the same day to arrange the interview.

In its decision, the Press Council said the Herald had "fallen sadly short" of standards of media freedom and professional standards.

Herald editor-in-chief Tim Murphy said the newspaper's response to the complaints resulted from the Herald's own inquiry and "was based on interviews with the writer, photographer and editor concerned".

He denied any misrepresentation or subterfuge, saying Glucina did not work in PR nor did she have any PR clients.

Murphy denied that any consent for publication was withdrawn, saying Bailey requested through one of the cafe owners that the piece not appear in Glucina's gossip column. The paper was already being printed when a blogger contacted the newspaper on Bailey's behalf.

The Press Council said while the Herald stated Glucina did not work in PR, her Linked-in profile referred to her as a director of a PR company and this meant there was initial confusion over her approach. "It seems very likely that Ms Bailey's employers, who were already acquainted with Ms Glucina, knew of her PR skills and were comfortable with the idea that she would help produce a media statement that would help counter any possible damage to the reputation of their business. There seems to have been no clear distinction between the journalistic and the PR aspects of the proposed article.

"While the Press Council does not consider Ms Glucina's history as a journalist to be particularly relevant to this case, it was known to the NZ Herald and should have resulted in special care to ensure that the highest ethical standards were maintained," the decision said.

The council said the onus was on Glucina as a "professional media person" to make her position clear to all parties including to Bailey.

The Press Council upheld the complaints and found elements of subterfuge in the Herald's dealing with Bailey as well as a failure to act fairly towards her. "In this case, (the Press Council) is of the view that the NZ Herald has generally fallen far short of those standards in its handling of a sensitive issue and its failure to respect the interests of a vulnerable person."

The council did not find enough public interest in Bailey's story to justify the use of subterfuge or override any right to privacy.

The second part of the decision centred around complaints that the Herald was in breach of standards of accuracy, comment and fact, discrimination and diversity, conflicts of interest and photographs.

In regards to these complaints, the Press Council upheld the issue of conflict of interest but did not uphold the remaining complaints.

It said the relationship between Glucina and her brother, who is manager of the Hip Group, which owns several eateries including the cafe in question, should have been declared.

The full decision can be viewed here.