There were interesting differences of opinion among my City University students yesterday about the use of pictures showing Muammar Gaddafi after he had been killed.

Part of the discussion centred on whether it is ever right and/or tasteful to publish a photograph of a dead person.

On balance, I thought the publication of the Gaddafi pictures was justified, given the special circumstances surrounding the manner of his death, the context of his own tyranny and the widespread dissemination of them on the internet.

But, in general, I don't think newspapers should carry pictures of dead people.

It would appear that the Press Complaints Commission, in an adjudication released yesterday, agrees.

It censured the Daily Record for using a picture that showed the body of a man, found on a footpath near Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, that was wrapped in sheeting.

The man's aunt complained that the use of the picture was insensitive and amounted to an intrusion into grief. It had caused distress to family and friends.

Her nephew's body was only loosely covered, so the outline of his arms and body could clearly be seen.

He was not a celebrity, she argued, and the paper should have exercised a level of restraint rather than publishing such an explicit photograph.

The aunt, Susan Thomson, did not take issue with the accompanying report or the headline, "Arthur's Seat body find", which was published on 13 June this year.

The Record, though sorry for the distress caused, did not accept that it had breached the clause of the editors' code that deals with intrusion into grief or shock.

It argued that it was its duty to inform the public of tragic events and that there was always a "difficult balance to strike", claiming the decision to publish the photograph was "not taken lightly".

In its defence it said the body was covered and visible to the public, adding that while such photographs were unfortunate they were not uncommon.

It removed the photograph from the online version of the article and offered to publish an apology to the family.

But Mrs Thomson did not accept the sincerity of the paper's apology and rejected the paper's claim that the body was visible to the public, noting that her nephew was found 300ft up on the side of a cliff and the police had not erected a privacy screen.

In its adjudication, the PCC found there was no justification for the "very specific nature" of the photograph.

While newspapers were entitled to report on tragic events the "overriding requirement" of the code was that publication must be "handled sensitively" at times of grief or shock.

"Tragic stories such as this raise difficult questions for editors, who need to strike the correct balance between publishing information about a death for their readers at the same time as handling publication with due sensitivity," commented the PCC's director Stephen Abell.

"This was a difficult case, but the commission ruled that the use of the image crossed a line.

The adjudication is an important addition to the PCC's case law under clause 5 of the editors' code, and editors should learn the lesson from it".

It is, of course, unlikely that a relative of Colonel Gaddafi will make any complaint about the papers' grisly front page pictures of his dead body.

Source: PCC