Press Complaints Commission oks Mail Doherty stalkage

The Press Complaints Commission - the self-appointed, self-selecting, self-populating body which somehow "regulates" the UK newspaper industry has rejected a complaint about the Daily Express from The Priory.

The private sort-of-clinic place complained that the Mail journalist had “wilfully breached the code by entering the private grounds of the hospital without asking permission and not immediately making her presence known to hospital management.

The Mail countered that she'd turned up, found no security on the gate, the barrier up, and went straight to the front desk and said "I am a Daily Mail journalist."

(We'd have thought going up to people who work in the mental health industry and claiming to be a Mail journalist is the sort of behaviour that would have you led straight down the shock corridor.)

She was there seeking after news of Pete Doherty - nobody pointed out that it's virtually impossible to violate the publicity of a man who hands out interviews every time he passes a stool.

The PCC observed, fairly enough, that it's kind of tricky for a journalist to declare their presence to someone who isn't there, and rejected the complaint.

They were unable to consider a complaint from Justin Hawkins that nobody was interested in violating his privacy.

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