The Newcastle Evening Chronicle has defended its coverage of two teenagers who managed to get past airport security without any documentation while playing truant from school – and then allegedly stole cigarettes from a duty-free shop.

The newspaper carried an interview with the teenagers and their mum, together with a picture, following the incident at Newcastle Airport on September 11 – the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But the story prompted outrage from some readers, who said that by naming and picturing the teenagers the Chronicle had made heroes out of them.

The mother had agreed that her children, aged 14 and 15, could be named, and claimed in the interview that rather than being arrested they should have been rewarded for exposing a security flaw.