Newspapers ‘scapegoats’ over Madeleine

THE owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star said his newspapers were “scapegoated” for their coverage of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

Richard Desmond told the Leveson Inquiry that his titles were “the only honest ones and straightforward ones” for the way they printed a front-page apology to the missing girl’s parents and paid them £550,000 (€657,484) in a libel settlement.

He hit out at a former head of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) for criticising Daily Express editor Peter Hill over the paper’s reporting of the case in more than 100 articles.