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The Press Complaints Commission has ruled that an article by Jan Moir about Boyzone singer Stephen Gately was not “inaccurate”, “intrusive” or “discriminatory”.

The piece, published in the Daily Mail on the eve of Gately’s funeral in October, discussed his lifestyle, spoke of the “bitter truth” behind his death – attributed to natural causes by the coroner - and said that “healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again,” adding: “whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.”

It also made reference to Kevin McGee, the ex-husband of Matt Lucas, who killed himself earlier in the same month, and said that both events “raised troubling questions about what happened.” Moir’s article resulted in a record 25,000 complaints to the press watchdog, including one from Gately’s husband Andrew Cowles.

In response to the complaints, the Daily Mail told the PCC that the article was clearly an opinion piece and that what Moir had written would have applied equally had the singer been straight.

Today the PCC ruled that the article did not breach guidelines, stating: “The price of freedom of expression is that commentators and columnists say things with which other people may not agree, may find offensive or may consider to be inappropriate.” It did, however, say it understood why many readers were upset by the column.

In reaction to the decision, veteran human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell wrote on his Twitter page “Press Complaints Commission should be sacked. Jan Moir’s Stephen Gately story was inaccurate. But PCC rejected complaints. Disgrace.” Meanwhile, in an interview with the BBC, Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, criticised the self-regulating nature of the commission, saying: “I think we have got to a position where it’s very difficult to recommend that anyone from a minority community makes a complaint to the PCC.”

Posted in: Campaigns & Politics |