The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) have made the decision to reject a complaint made by Andrew Cowles, the husband of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately who died in Majorca last October.  The complaint concerning an article written by Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir saw more than 25,000 complaints in total to the PPC (the most it has ever received) regarding her description of events leading up to his death as being both “sleazy” and “less than respectable”.

Published only six days after Stephen Gately’s death, both fans and his record company, Polydor, believed that it was Moir who was the one being disrespectful, however the PCC said whilst they were

“uncomfortable with the tenor of the columnist’s remarks”

they believed that to censor her or the paper would move towards the censorship of society, something they were uncomfortable with believing that

“Argument and debate are working parts of an active society and should not be constrained unnecessarily.”

Cowles had previously said he had felt the Daily Mail had broken the PCC’s code of conduct on three separate issues – that it was inaccurate, it intruded into private grief and contained homophobic remarks. The commission however rejected there was any homophobia as Moir did not use any abusive or discriminatory language saying:

“While many complainants considered that there was an underlying tone of negativity towards Mr Gately and the complainant on account of the fact that they were gay, it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article,” it said.

On the subject of it being inaccurate, which Cowles argues it was with Moir claiming it was not “natural” despite a post mortem ruling he had died from natural causes, the PCC said that whilst controversial and speculative, it “could not be established as accurate or otherwise”. The insensitivity concerning private grief was also rejected with the PCC saying the time of publishing was “in questionable taste” but it did not constitute a breach of the rules. Acting to concede that the Cowles would have found the article upsetting, the PCC stated the death of a well-known celebrity will always lead to public discussion.

Now we don’t know about you but personally we think the PCC could have done better on this. Their findings have acted to do nothing more than indicate that there appears to be a get out of jail free card to write just about anything you want about any subject, even if that subject acts to reinforce negative stereotypes that a minority community like ours has worked long and hard to change.

You can read the full adjudication from the PCC here.