THE Press Complaints Commission has found 12 newspapers – excluding Tthe Daily Echo –in breach of its rules on reporting suicide following their coverage of the death of a Hampshire man who decapitated himself using a chainsaw.

The press watchdog said that the newspaper articles in print and online had breached its code of conduct designed to minimise the risk of copycat suicides by publishing excessive details about 50-year-old David Phyall’s death.

The Commission found the Daily Mirror, Mirror online, the Sun, Sun Online, Daily Star, Telegraph online, Mail online, Metro.co.uk, Independent.co.uk, thelondonpaper.com, dailyrecord.

co.uk and crawleyobserver.co.uk had all breached the code of conduct.

However, the Daily Echo’s coverage – in which we said we could not and would not wish to print certain details about Mr Phyall’s suicide in accordance with PCC guidelines – was found to be within the watchdog’s code of conduct.

Emergency services found the body of Mr Phyall at his flat in Bodmin Road, Bishopstoke, after he cut his head with a chainsaw in July last year. A suicide verdict was recorded at an inquest which was told that Mr Phyall went to tragic lengths in protest at being forced from his home. Despite initially saying he approved of Atlantic Housing’s plans to bulldoze the rundown estate where he lived Mr Phyall, who had a history of mental health, epilepsy and mobility problems, then spent two years fighting to stay in his ground floor flat.