Spectator letters: Bereaved parents against press regulation, and a defence of Tony Benn

Why we need a free press

Sir: As bereaved parents and (to borrow from some signatories of last week’s advertisement) victims of public authority abuse we wholly oppose adoption of the politically endorsed Royal Charter of Press Regulation. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Christopher, our mentally ill son, had been denied his right to life as a result of failures by the prison service, the police and the NHS. Our experience was that, in the aftermath of our son’s death, the primary objective of the public authorities involved was to protect themselves from criticism because of those failures rather than to achieve justice for our son. If it had not been for press support, we question whether we would have achieved the accountability by the agencies involved that was reflected ultimately in the ECHR judgment. We are in no doubt that a politically endorsed system of press regulation would lead eventually to pressure on the press to avoid embarrassment to ministers.