The chief executive of gay rights group Stonewall today claimed it was "very difficult to recommend" that anyone from a minority community complain to the Press Complaints Commission, after its ruling on Jan Moir's Stephen Gately column.

Ben Summerskill, a former Observer journalist, criticised the PCC's role as the press industry's self-regulator over Moir's Daily Mail article, a piece that he described as "dancing on the grave of a prematurely dead young man".

However, the PCC chairman, Peta Buscombe, defended the regulator, saying it came down on newspaper editors "like a ton of bricks" over individual discrimination.

Buscombe admitted the Moir column "just failed to cross the line" in terms of breaching the PCC's code of practice, adding that she had "huge sympathy" for Gately's civil partner, Andrew Cowles, who made the complaint.

The PCC rejected the complaint from Cowles, but admitted in its ruling that it had been "uncomfortable with the tenor of the columnist's remarks".

"The difficulty people have with the PCC is it says that it regulates decency and of course it's self-regulating," Summerskill told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We wouldn't allow investment banks to say, 'don't worry about auditors, we'll self-regulate', or mining companies to say, 'don't worry about health and safety, we'll look after ourselves'.

"And 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."

However, Buscombe rejected this claim. "In terms of discrimination, he [Summerskill] suggested maybe people who feel discriminated against shouldn't come to the PCC, that is entirely wrong," she told Today.

"Where it's questions of individual discrimination, we actually come down on editors like a ton of bricks, indeed we did a month ago in relation to someone who had had gender reassignment."

She said the Daily Mail – whose editor, Paul Dacre, chairs the editors' code of practice committee that writes the newspaper industry guidelines enforced by the PCC but is not on the commission itself – was "nowhere near this".

She also defended the system of self-regulation: "It works because this is regulation that is independent of the state and we are therefore flexible and free to be able to consider important things like freedom of expression, which in a free society sometimes creates unpleasant articles which create rigorous debate.

"We respond to that debate and indeed the fact that we are talking about it this morning means that we can have legitimate criticism, editorial judgement can be questioned and I think that's absolutely right."

She said the watchdog's decision had been made by 17 people "thinking about these issues very hard".

"A lot of this has to do with context and this very important principle we had to face: the extent to which newspapers' columnists should be free to publish what many will see as unpalatable and unpleasant stories," she said.

"It was difficult because the commission found it in many areas extremely distasteful and we had strong debate in some areas."

There was especially fierce discussion around the issue of the article's timing, a day before Gately's funeral in October, something for which Moir later apologised.

Buscombe said there had been another recent example of a private individual's death where a complaint had been upheld, but Gately's case was felt to have been sufficiently public, after "acres of comment" about his life and death, to have justified the Mail's decision to publish.

"It just failed to cross the line," she said, adding that the PCC had "huge sympathy" with Cowles and appreciated he had brought the complaint.

Separately, the Crown Prosecution Service has decided there is "insufficient evidence" that Moir's article breached the law.

After two complaints, the Metropolitan police passed the article to the CPS to see if it had broken any laws.

"Having considered that material I have decided that there is insufficient evidence that any offence has been committed," Tony Connell, the CPS London complex casework lawyer, said last night.

"In coming to this conclusion I have paid particular attention to article 10 of the Human Rights Act, which protects individuals' freedom of expression. It is an established legal principle that this freedom applies equally to information and ideas that are favourably received as to those which offend, shock and disturb.

"Though the complainants and many others found this article offensive, this does not make its publication unlawful."

Peter Tatchell, the co-founder of gay rights group OutRage!, called for the PCC to be disbanded.

"By failing to uphold its own standards and enforce its own code of practice, the PCC has demonstrated that it is unwilling, unable and unfit to regulate newspapers. We need a new press regulator with principles and teeth."

He said Moir's article had been factually inaccurate to claim Gately's death was "unnatural" or "lonely", while her claim that it represented "another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships" was, he said, "just a cheap homophobic jibe at Stephen and the gay community".

"If Jan Moir had made similar comments about a black or Jewish person, and disparaged their race and community, the PCC would have ruled against her.

"She may well have been arrested and charged with inciting racial hatred. Why is the PCC adopting double standards on homophobia?

"This ruling brings the PCC into disrepute. It's another nail in the coffin of this discredited, feeble institution. The PCC is past its sell-by date. It should be replaced by an independent statutory body with real power and principles."

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