He's no weirdo, just a sick man

"The Loon with a Balloon", "Amazing letters sent to Royals by Crazed Weirdo" and, eventually, the eagerly awaited exclusive interview: "We Quiz the Royal Weirdo". The Sun last week treated Bernard Quinn, a sad, middle-aged man who was obsessed with the Princess Royal, to its full screaming headline treatment.

Mr Quinn, who became mentally ill after a car crash in 1992, apparently writes daily to the Princess declaring his love. His dogged pursuit of her on official engagements has led to security increases. Finally, on Friday in Liverpool, he was charged with behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace just hours before the Princess was due to visit. Later that day the judge decided there was no case to answer after a psychiatrist told him that Mr Quinn - like thousands of other people - was mentally ill but not dangerous. Mr Quinn was set free.

Buckingham Palace had said earlier in the week that Mr Quinn had never indicated he wanted to harm the Princess. But that did not deter the Sun, which labelled the former senior engineer a "crazed stalker".

Most newspapers carried the story but none matched the Soaraway for hysterical enthusiasm. In time-honoured tradition it appealed to readers who knew Mr Quinn to call in. He was tracked down and an interview in front of Buckingham Palace followed as he tried to persuade police officers to let him speak to the Queen.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, sees this process less as an exercise in "investigative reporting" than exploitation of the mentally vulnerable. She has written to the Sun to complain about "cruel headlines" and the paper's disregard for Mr Quinn's obvious anguish. She argues that its depiction of him as a dangerous freak has undermined three years of improvement in the tone and content of press coverage of mental illness. "Some of the best articles we have had in recent years have been in the tabloids - the Sun included," says Ms Wallace. "But this coverage reinforces ignorance and prejudice."

That stalkers can be dangerous is obvious - last week a man was convicted of threatening to injure the pop singer Madonna. But such cases are the exception, not the rule. Ms Wallace argues that Mr Quinn was in need of sympathy and psychiatric help. She claims that the life-long risk of schizophrenia is as high as one in 100. In a country where one in 10 people - including some royals - is estimated to suffer from depression at some point in life, a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God attitude might be expected to prevail.

Ms Wallace also points out that the Royal Family has been a focus for deluded people for years. An army of Mr Quinns have gone before but have escaped the media spotlight. Indeed, the Royal Family, she says, usually takes a compassionate view. She has even occasionally advised the Prince of Wales, Sane's patron, on how to reply to their letters.

To those who might underestimate Mr Quinn's anguish while exaggerating the threat he poses to others, she points to cases such as that of Simon Reynolds, a cameraman whose obsession with Lady Helen Windsor was also covered, albeit a little less hysterically, by the media.

There is a sting in the tale: Mr Reynolds died under a train in 1994, three years after developing mental illness and the accompanying obsession.

Ms Wallace has a message for the press, and perhaps for a public recently treated to a spate of "care in the community" stories with lethal endings: "To label such people weirdos is such a belittling of their isolation that it can create tragedies. It's sad that we have taken such a big step back."

Stuart Higgins, editor of the Sun, refused to comment on criticism of the paper's coverage.