The Daily Star is notorious for poor reporting, inaccuracies, exaggeration, libel payouts and lapses in taste. But, even by its own low standards, the paper has plunged into the abyss today.

Its report on the ongoing 7/7 bombing inquest contained a quote from a policeman describing the dazed survivors as they emerged from Aldgate station:

"It was like Michael Jackson's Thriller video. They were just covered in soot, their hair was all over the place, you just basically saw the whites of their eyes."

This must have set a light off in a Star executive's head: it's in our celebrity territory, get me the stills of Jacko's Thriller video.

Today's Daily Star: note the headline sub-deck - though the witness did not mention zombies

So here it is, a picture of an injured woman being assisted from the horror of the tunnel by police officers with an inset picture of Jackson and two "zombies" from what the paper's caption calls his "creepy Thriller video."

The really creepy thing is that the Star thought this an appropriate way to publish a story about an inquest into the deaths of 52 people.