METROPOLITAN police chief Sir Ian Blair clearly did not mean to offend the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman when he said that "almost nobody" understood why the Soham murders became such a big news story.

But it was still a very stupid thing to say, as well as being entirely inaccurate. Almost everybody would understand why Ian Huntley's terrible crime became such big news.

It also has absolutely nothing to do with racism, as Sir Ian suggested in his ham-fisted attempt to make a political point about the media.

The Soham murders attracted huge public interest because two little girls were murdered by someone in a position of trust. And it would have inspired the same reaction, whether the girls were white or black.

Perhaps Sir Ian's assertion that the media is institutionally racist was a response to frequent media allegations of institutional racism within the police.

Of course there are racists working within the media, as there are in every profession. But media coverage of the killings of Stephen Lawrence, Damilola Taylor and, more recently, Anthony Walker, are three striking examples which fly in the face of Sir Ian's claim.

The Daily Mail even went to the lengths of branding five uncharged suspects in the Stephen Lawrence case as "murderers" in one of the most famous front page headlines of recent years.

As the man in charge of policing England's capital, Sir Ian Blair has enough on his plate without having to apologise for igniting needless and ill-founded controversies.