I'd like to share a dilemma with you again this week. It concerns our recent hugely successful Cute Kids competition. Last week we announced the winner as seven-month-old Chelsea Steele. This caused some concern with the parents of one-year-old Jennifer Scott, pictured right. They contacted us to say that from the figures they knew Jennifer was in fact the winner. An investigation was immediately begun and this is the situation. Chelsea, one of 155 entrants, polled 21 votes. Jennifer had a total of nine. However a further 77 votes were sent in for Jennifer - but not on official entry forms. A member of staff here had mistakenly told the Scott family that it was in order to send votes on slips of paper or envelopes.

I was unaware of this at the time and discounted the votes as they were not on official coupons. The entries from the Scott family came in from as far as Doncaster. The rules say the editor's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Having discussed the situation with colleagues we thought the best way was to carry this note to set the record straight. Chelsea was the winner - but my apologies go out to the Scott family for being given incorrect information. In my book they were all winners.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.