The Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint against Pick Me Up magazine under rules designed to prevent payments to associates of criminals.

Clause 16 of the Editors’ Code prohibits payments to “convicted or confessed criminals or to their associates – who may include family, friends and colleagues” for stories which “seek to exploit a particular crime”.

The magazine published a first-person account of a woman who had slept with a man on the night that he had committed murder, triggering a complaint from the daughter of the victim.

The Commission upheld the complaint, ruling that her sexual relationship with the murderer meant that the woman could reasonably be described as an ‘associate’, while the article’s focus on the woman’s association with the murderer meant that the story exploited the crime.  “Although the woman had been entitled to tell her story to the magazine, the payment for it could not be justified,” it said.