State Press watchdog censures its own boss... for his tweets attacking the Press

THE Government- sponsored Press regulator, impress, suffered a humiliating setback yesterday after it was forced to give its boss and two board members a dressing- down for breaking impartiality rules.

The trio published dozens of vicious Twitter attacks on the Daily Mail and other publications, which displayed such bias they are no longer allowed to sit in judgment on popular newspapers.

Some of the most astonishing were from chief executive Jonathan Heawood, who accused the Mail of fascism and threw his weight behind a Left-wing campaign to stop firms from advertising in the Mail, The Sun and the Express. in one post, he wrote that most Mail editors were ‘children in a fantasy land of their own making’ and in another he directed foul-mouthed abuse at the Mail’s editor-in-chief.

He also retweeted a post attacking retailer John Lewis for ‘bringing its name into disrepute by advertising in a neo-fascist rag’.

it may come as little surprise that Mr Heawood holds such views, given a post by his sister, the Guardian writer Sophie Heawood, saying she was ‘genuinely excited for a future in which the Daily Mail readers are all dead’.

But even impress – funded almost entirely by Max Mosley’s millions – ruled Mr Heawood had gone too far. Some 19 of the 26 posts it examined either brought it ‘into disrepute’ or ‘could be reasonably viewed as compromising impress impartiality’. Board members Emma Jones and Maire Messenger Davies were little better. Miss Jones, a journalist who has written for The Sun and Mail on Sunday, ‘liked’ offensive messages linking the Mail to MP Jo Cox’s murder.

She also wrote posts accusing the Express of ‘irresponsible reporting’ and backing the Stop Funding Hate campaign to prevent firms from advertising in the Right-wing Press. Meanwhile, Miss Messenger Davies, who teaches media studies at the University of Ulster, liked and retweeted 24 Twitter messages branding The Sun ‘duplicitous’, and calling for the ‘toxic #MailScum’ to be closed altogether. impress has banned the trio – together with a third board member, Martin Hickman – from presiding over any cases involving major newspapers. instead, they are confined to judging small magazines and local newspapers.

Mr Hickman has been heavily critical of News UK – owner of The Sun and The Times – in his book, Dial M For Murdoch.

The embarrassing defeat is a major blow to impress, which has waged a campaign to be able to force the entire Press to become members. At the moment, only a few smaller publications have signed up, but as the official watchdog, impress has a duty ‘to be open to all publishers on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms’.

impress will also face ‘serious questions’ over the timing and manner in which it published the damning findings. The report censuring its members is dated May 2017, but was made public only yesterday – three months after a judicial review hearing into a decision taken by the Press Recognition Panel last October to give impress Royal Charter backing.

it was buried in a press release misleadingly titled ‘impress is growing fast, with publishers reaching 4.5million monthly readers’.

Asked to explain the delay, impress said: ‘An impress panel investigated these concerns thoroughly and presented its findings to the Board, which immediately began to implement the panel’s recommendations... Once these steps had been taken, we published the panel’s report in full.’

But the News Media Association, which brought the judicial review, said the findings raised ‘serious questions’ about whether impress was in breach of the Royal Charter.

‘Findings raised serious questions’