The Sun has come under fire from England batsman Ben Stokes for a front page story Stokes has called “utterly disgusting” and “lowest form of journalism”.A Hacked Off spokesperson responding to the article said:

“This is an appalling invasion of privacy with no public interest justification. We have been told repeatedly by newspaper editors that "everything has changed" since the Leveson report 7 years ago. It is abundantly clear that nothing has changed. Some newspapers are just as incapable of abiding by principles of human decency and basic journalistic ethics as they were during the phone hacking scandal. “The fundamental problem is the total absence of regulation across most of our newspaper industry. The self-regulator IPSO has the power to issue large fines and launch serious investigations into breaches of the Editors' Code, but it has never done so. This is because IPSO is run by the same newspapers it is supposed to regulate. There is no deterrent from newspapers acting in this way time and again.” “A serious press regulator would be able to deal with such a blatant transgression of the journalism code. But IPSO, which was set up by the press after the Leveson report, is owned by the corporate publishers and is a puppet regulator.” “It has the power to impose large fines and launch serious investigations to prevent precisely this sort of outrageous behaviour. But in its five years of operation we have not seen a single fine or a single investigation. “Meanwhile, as we can see, newspapers continue to break their own codes with impunity. Until it is reformed or replaced to meet the Leveson requirements for independent regulation, there will be no accountability for the press and no protection for ordinary people who are victims of outrageous press behaviour.”

ENDSFor press enquiries contact: sara@hackinginquiry.org 07554 665 940NOTESHacked Off is the campaign for a free and accountable press, and we work with the victims of press abuse to achieve those aims.