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And she has praised the Mail for being
“brave” enough to let her tackle
difficult subjects.
Speaking on the latest Media Focus
podcast she talked about the
February 2016 Mail Online column in
which she said Madeleine’s parents were
partly to blame for her disappearance.
On being one of Mail Online’s two paid
columnists, along with Piers Morgan, she
said: “The audience we pull on some of
the stuff we write is off the scale.
They are brave.
“The Madeleine McCann article I wrote,
nobody would touch that. In other papers
I’ve worked for I was never allowed to
write about that topic.
“The Mail will back you and they will
provide the legal support that will
allow you that freedom. Everyone else is
terrified of compliance, terrified of
legal costs and terrified of their own
shadow.
“I articulate views that a lot of people
feel but feel they can no longer say.”
Hopkin left The Sun for Mail Online in
September 2015.
She also spoke about being questioned by
police over a Sun article which she
wrote in April 2015 in which said
African migrants crossing the
Mediterranean to Europe were like
“cockroaches” and said that gunships
should be used to drive their boats
back.
She said: “When my Sun column came out
about the migrants, which the head of
the UN criticised…and then the Met
Police major crime and homicide command,
I went in and was interviewed under
caution for my copy, for the words I
write.
“I don’t question have I gone over the
line, I question whether our policing
and the head of the UN – do they have
insufficient things to do?
“I quite enjoyed it. I had a brilliant
barrister who looked like someone from
Eastenders…
“My case was taken to the CPS because
the people that launched the complaint
were the Society for Black Lawyers… and
if they didn’t take the case forward
they might be seen as being racist…It
was discredited as being nonsense.
“That’s just the reality for people like
myself who are trying to keep some of
freedom of press and freedom of speech,
that’s what we are up against.”
She said that a column which she wrote
in May condemning the BBC for
advertising internships which were open
only to applicants from ethnic
minorities was the website’s most-read
article in the last quarter. |
