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Police receive complaint about controversial article on Stephen Gately
Monday, 19 October 2009
Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham and Shane Lynch carry out the coffin after the funeral of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately at St Laurence O'Toole Church in Dublin
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Police have received a complaint about an article written by newspaper columnist Jan Moir about the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, Scotland Yard said last night.
The article, published in Friday's Daily Mail, also prompted more than 1,000 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “We have received a complaint from a member of the public.”
The development came after Gately's Boyzone bandmates led the mourning at his funeral in Dublin on Saturday.
Ronan Keating sung and carried the 33-year-old's coffin along with Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham and Shane Lynch during the ceremony, which was watched by thousands of people. Gately died last Saturday in his apartment in Port Andratx, Majorca.
In the column about the gay singer's death, Moir wrote: “Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.
“Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.”
And she signed off: “For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.”
Moir defended her opinion piece, which ignited a huge debate on networking sites such as Twitter. She issued a response in which she branded suggestions of homophobia as “mischievous” and claimed the backlash was a “heavily orchestrated internet campaign”.
The Irish Mail on Sunday yesterday appeared to be distancing itself from Ms Moir’s column. It carried four pages of coverage on Gately’s funeral with a note saying: “Comments made by journalist Jan Moir about Stephen Gately in her newspaper column caused controversy on Friday. Jan Moir’s column has never been published in the Irish Daily Mail which, like the Irish Mail on Sunday, is edited and printed entirely in Ireland — independent of the UK titles — and does not have an online presence.”
Stephen Fry was among those using Twitter to mobilise opinion about the article.
At one stage he wrote: “The Press Complaints Commission website is down. Sheer volume of traffic. That says something about the strength of feeling I think.”
A spokesman for the PCC said of the 1,000 complaints received, many were relating to questions of accuracy, intrusion and discrimination.
He said the PCC had already established links with Gately's family in case they had wanted to express an opinion about the coverage of his death.
The offending article: Moir's words
*"Fans know to expect the unexpected of their heroes, particularly if those idols live a life that is shadowed by dark appetites or fractured by private vice."
*"The Gately family are, perhaps understandably, keen to register their boy's demise on the national consciousness as nothing more than a tragic accident."
*"Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this."
*"If we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy."
*"Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships."
*"The recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened."
*"For once again, under the carapace of glittering hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see."
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