Universal regulation of the press is not achievable, the director of the Press Complaints Commission has said.Stephen Abell, who provided 408 pages of written evidence, told the Leveson Inquiry today such model, which would aim to include online publishers, was not "practicable" anymore.He said: “To me the risk comes in saying 'anyone who looks like a newspaper online has to be in', because I don't think that's achievable."Abell said he was happy to admit the PCC is not a regulator but “performs some functions that a regulator would”.He said regard had to be given to the nature of the industry when thinking about a replacement body for the commission.He added: “I'm not saying that self-regulation is good, statutory regulation is bad... My point is that at the heart of the newspaper industry is legitimately the notion of people exercising their discretion about what should be included, responding to the needs and wishes of their readers.”Abell advocated a contractual system rather than once based in statute, and said notions about independence would be crucial to the whole system.He described a “two-pronged” body able to handle individual complaints and systemic problems.He said: “You would still be able to offer swift redress to complaints... but there would be an appropriate response after the event that would lead to standards changing, punishment if that is necessary but systems changing for the future.“To me it offers a more solid, a more explicit and a more enforceable model than there is at the moment.”He added: “I think one if the virtues of this inquiry... will be to just take a step back and look at the over-arching structure and see what's missing or what might be changed."The PCC doesn't have the clearly defined mechanism to explore the type of systemic issue with the News of the World properly.“Financial sanctions would focus the mind. One could have as a matter of agreement, disclosure of information and a fixed penalty for failing. That's a perfectly reasonable proposal taking in board the lessons of the News of the World.”Abell told Lord Justice Leveson that public members are asked about their interest in freedom of expression when applying for a position on the PCC board, but are not swayed by editors.He said: “There are ten independent-minded people who would ensure that decisions are not being driven by editors, if they were intent to do that. To join the PCC you'd have to have a strong personality.”He added: “My concern about ex-editors [sitting on the board] is simply about the speed of the industry, the way it moves. There's quite considerable change that goes on underneath people's feet whilst they're in a post and once they are out of the post, things do shift.“The expertise argument is strengthened with people who are still in the heat of the fray.”He added: “I've very seldom if ever seen all editors agree and all lay members take the opposite view."Editors will say in their experience what they think. Sometimes they say we wouldn't have done this in our paper for the following reasons, which I think the commissioners give regard to.”Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked the director about the ruling on an article written by journalist Jan Moir in 2009. The article, headlined “There was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death”, received over 2,200 complaints and crashed the PCC website.Abell said: “There was a large body of people who were deeply concerned about this article. We then contacted the family of Mr Gately...his partner subsequently made a formal complaint.“I believe there will be some commissioners who felt it went over the line, but the majority and then the consensus was that it stopped just short of the line.“It seemed to be a rhetorical point, [Moir] was saying to her mind...natural death involved people dying of old age in their beds.”Abell said the columnist "was formulating a view of the world and possibly her sense of the world view of her readership".He added: "I don't think that the word 'natural' necessarily has only a medical connotation there. I think it's a term that one can use as a point of perspective, what is natural and what is not natural. I don't think and the commission did not think it was an inaccuracy in that sense."He was also asked about a complaint made by broadcaster Clare Balding in 2010, after Sunday Times columnist AA Gill referred to her as a “dyke on a bike”.Abell said he did not agree with John Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times, who told the inquiry the term was not regarded as pejorative in the context of the article, when giving evidence earlier this month.He added: "I don't feel that one reading that article would regard it as a neutral use of the term... To my recollection it was a unanimous view of the commission that this was a breach of the code."Abell was questioned over a letter on phone hacking sent by Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, to the PCC in 2010.He said the commission had to accept responsibility for its initial report into the scandal, criticised by the editor, which conflicted with articles published in the Guardian and New York Times.He told the inquiry that some cases dealt with by the commission had no possible remedy.He said: “As soon as we get into the realm of identifying victims of sexual assault or certain serious privacy intrusions, it's very hard to see what the remedy would be."He said the PCC informally sends desist notices to broadcasters and members of the press when a media scrum descends on members of the public, or celebrities concerned about paparazzi attention. He told the inquiry journalists and photographs would be in breach of the code if one was ignored.He added: “In my experience, very, very seldom has there ever been an issue which follows up because it has actually been rather universally complied with.”Abell said 2,274 PCC complaints made in 2010 were not pursued.He added: "A large proportion of people who dash off that first email then do not continue in any way to engage with the process, often because their concerns are more nebulous than focused on a specific article."