A FREE press is essential for the future of a healthy democracy, a question time session with the Press Complaints Commission heard.

Vivien Hepworth, lay commissioner at the PCC, told up to 50 people in Nottingham that a government-controlled press would be an "absolute disaster".

The public was invited to the Galleries of Justice yesterday to quiz a panel from the commission, including newly appointed chairman Baroness Peta Buscombe, director Tim Toulmin, Ms Hepworth and Nottingham Evening Post editor Malcolm Pheby.

The panel was asked to give thoughts on how the commission would be if it were legislated.

Ms Hepworth said: "I think it would be an absolute disaster. We don't want to be run by the government.

"No politicians have got the right to regulate the press. That's not a society that I want to live in."

Baroness Buscombe said: "If we were in a situation where we had legislation for the press we would be in a very difficult place.

"We are independent of the government.

"Wherever the rich could afford to protect their interests they would, which I think is appalling. The most important reason for the press is for a free society."

The former barrister of 35 years said court reporting "is critically important" in making sure justice is done.

She told the meeting: "It makes a real difference if there are independent investigators just sat there in the court room."

The audience asked whether the press would be better controlled if the PCC could impose heavier fines.

Mr Toulmin said the media is often restricted by "overzealous laws" which he said was "something of national concern".

"The government really wants to do something about it," he said.

"People assume because they are a big business that they are making lots of money - but that's not the case."

Baroness Buscombe said a prominent apology carried in a newspaper was a very effective method of regulation.

She said: "Most of the people that have been done wrong want an apology.

"For editors, it is like putting them in the stocks. They find it deeply humiliating.

"They are being humiliated in front of their peer group."

Mr Pheby said: "It is absolutely true. The last thing we want to do is be at the wrong end of a press complaint judgement. Editors take it very seriously."

A member of the audience however said it was a "great pity" that the PCC did not regulate what information had not made it into the news.

Speaking after the meeting Laura Murphy, 29, from Hucknall, a college media studies lecturer, said: "I think it was really interesting to see how the commission works and how they deal with complaints.

"The issues they raised about democracy and the free press were very important."