The Hull Daily Mail has defended its choice of front-page headline – “I had to tell my kids Santa is not real” – after criticism that it sent out the wrong message on newsstands just days before Christmas.

The newspaper said its Friday splash, about a family struggling on Universal Credit, does not claim Santa isn’t real, but simply reports what one “desperate” mother felt she had to tell her children.

In pictures shared on a Facebook group for residents of the East Yorkshire port city, one local Tesco store appears to have flipped over copies of the paper so only the back page faces customers.