The broadcaster Anne Diamond, one of the many high-profile witnesses at the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, has told the programme that "somewhere along the line… we've accepted… if you're in the public eye you have done a deal with the devil."

She also claimed that press treatment can be "stupid, inhumane - at times brutal - and I think indecent and dishonest."

Trevor Kavanagh, associate editor of the Sun, who also gave evidence to the inquiry, which hears its last day of evidence today before taking a Christmas break, told Today presenter John Humphrys that "I'm not saying we're clean… but everything isn't always as it appears."

And he added: "In my experience I think that the tabloids and the broadsheets have both cleaned up their acts enormously and, while there are - obviously - outbursts when we get it wrong... we have taken enormous efforts to clean up our act to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Miss Diamond said she believed "we need some sort of Ofcom, some sort of regulatory body, with teeth, that all of the popular press can buy into and be proud to buy into."

But Mr Kavanagh disagreed, adding: "There may be regulation, but I don't think it should be statutory."

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