Daily Mail's Stephen Gately article 'did not break law'
Daily Mail's Stephen Gately article 'did not break law'
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By Matt Hallam. |  |
Thursday, 18, Feb 2010 04:00
By Lewis Bazley.
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has rejected thousands of complaints made against the Daily Mail newspaper over a controversial column published on the eve of singer Stephen Gately's funeral.
The commission received a record 25,000 complaints about the article by columnist Jan Moir which discussed the openly gay lifestyle of the late Boyzone singer and had originally been titled 'Why there was nothing natural about the death of Stephen Gately'.
The Metropolitan police received two complaints about the article - the title of which was later changed to 'A Strange, Lonely and Troubling Death' amid rising complaints - but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has ruled Moir's article did not break the law.
The PCC said it could "fully understand" why Gately's partner Andrew Cowles had been moved to submit a complaint about the article, which prompted a livid reaction from thousands of Twitter users after its publication last year.
"The article clearly caused distress to Mr Cowles, as well as many others, and this was regrettable," said PCC director Stephen Abell.
Tony Connell, CPS London complex casework lawyer, added: "In coming to this conclusion I have paid particular attention to Article 10 of the Human Rights Act which protects individuals' freedom of expression.
"It is an established legal principle that this freedom applies equally to information and ideas that are favourably received as to those which offend, shock and disturb.
"Though the complainants and many others found this article offensive, this does not make its publication unlawful."
A week after the initial outcry, Moir issued a statement saying she regretted "any affront caused" by her article and apologised to the family of Stephen Gately for if she "caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column".
Though complaints about Moir's article caused the PCC website to crash, she wrote: "To say it was a hysterical overreaction would be putting it mildly, though clearly much of it was an orchestrated campaign by pressure groups and those with agendas of their own."