Associated Newspapers editor-in-chief Paul Dacre today said that a new press ombudsman could be created with the power to impose fines on publishers in extreme cases.

He also announced the creation of a new page two corrections column in all his papers during a speech to a Leveson Inquiry seminar in London this morning in which he also launched a robust defence of self regulation and the freedom of the popular press.

Whilst condemning the illegal hacking of mobile phones that has prompted the Leveson Inquiry, Dacre also called for a sense of proportion.