‘Public had right to see crime scene’

The newspaper which published photographs of Michaela McAreavey’s body defended the move by saying the public had a “perfectly legitimate right” to see the crime scene.

In an editorial accompanying the publication of the pictures, the newspaper said it was in the public interest to publish them so that the public had an “exact picture of the crime scene” and “and the condition in which the corpse was found”.

Under the headline: ‘Who Killed Michaela Harte? Who tore the dress of Michaela Harte?’, the editorial, which appears in French, goes on to offer a defence for its decision to publish 11 images of the crime scene across two pages of the newspaper.