COLUMN RECEIVES 22,000 COMPLAINTS

Britain’s Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has said that it has received more complaints about the controversial article on Stephen Gately’s death than any other single article in its history.

The commission said that it had thus far received over 22,000 complaints about Jan Moir’s column, published in the Daily Mail on Friday 16 October headlined “A strange, lonely and troubling death” and online under the title of “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death”.

The PCC said that it has “pro-actively been in touch with representatives of Boyzone – who are in contact with Stephen Gately’s family”.

The PCC generally requires the involvement of directly-affected parties in its investigations, but it said that even if the family chooses not to make a formal complaint about the column, it will still “write to the Daily Mail for its response to the more general complaints from the public before considering whether there are any issues under the Code to pursue.”

It added that it will make a further public statement when it has considered the matter.