(Credit: Express.co.uk, screenshot)

As we wrote in January 2011, Northern & Shell’s seven print publications including the Daily Star and the Daily Express were kicked out of the UK print regulatory body the Press Complaints Commission after the company stopped paying the PCC’s annual dues.

Last week, during the Leveson Inquiry into UK press standards and practices, Daily Express editor Hugh Whittow offered information on why the newspapers dropped out of the PCC’s regulation, according to the Press Gazette.

According to Whittow’s comments at the inquiry, a couple of issues prompted the move:

1. The PCC’s lack of action in reports on Madeline McCann, a young girl who went missing in 2007.

2. PCC rulings being used “to support legal claims,” despite the PCC’s stated disclosure that it “cannot deal with any complaint which is the subject of legal or other associated proceedings.”

Read more here on the Press Gazette’s website.