Newspaper cleared over conjoined twin pictures

A newspaper was cleared of misconduct yesterday for publishing photographs of the conjoined twin Gracie Attard, taken without her parents' knowledge, because the parents had already struck a £350,000 deal with other media.

The Press Complaints Commission said the Manchester Evening News had not breached the code of conduct on photographing children. It said that when the pictures were carried in June this year, similar photographs were about to be published in an exclusive deal between Michaelangelo and Rina Attard and two Sunday newspapers and a television station.

The PCC chairman, Lord Wakeham, said the ruling made clear that "those who sell details of their own private life may undermine their rights to it in the longer term". The Commission also ruled that it was not its function to protect the financial position of complainants. "Privacy is – in the Commission's opinion – not a commodity which can be sold on one person's terms," it said.

The family's other twin, Rosie, died in an operation to separate the pair last year in Manchester, after surgeons won a long court battle.

The Manchester Evening News editor Paul Horrocks described the ruling as "a great victory for common sense".

"The welfare of the child was never affected," he said.

Solicitors for the Attards were trying to contact them on the Mediterranean island of Gozo to discuss the ruling.