Outrage at Littlejohn's disabled rant

The Press Complaints Commission will be contacting Jody McIntyre, a disabled protester, to ask whether he wishes to make a complaint about an article by the columnist Richard Littlejohn published yesterday in the Daily Mail.

The column compared Mr McIntyre – who has cerebral palsy – to the comic disabled character Andy Pipkin, played by Matt Lucas, in Little Britain. Mr McIntyre was seen on video this week being dragged across the street by police after being tipped out of his wheelchair during protests in London over rises in student tuition fees.

Littlejohn wrote: "McIntyre put himself on offer and his brother pushed him into the front line. It's not as if he didn't know there was going to be trouble."

The comparison with Little Britain caused uproar on the micro-blogging site Twitter. By late afternoon the PCC had received 500 complaints. "We will be looking to contact Mr McIntyre himself to see if he wishes to complain," said the PCC director, Stephen Abell.