The Sun has condemned a south London school for reportedly banning the newspaper in the staffroom after it was branded "inappropriate reading material".
The local Croydon Advertiser newspaper claimed to have a letter from disgruntled staff at Beulah Nursery and Infants School in Thornton Heath that described their jobs as being akin to "working in a dictatorship," and said the ban of the tabloid had left them "very angry".
A Sun spokesman told HuffPost UK: "The first thing dictators target is freedom of speech so it's no surprise they've started by banning newspapers.
'Banned' from the staff room
"Rather than worrying about what their staff are reading, the leadership at Beulah Nursery and Infants might want to try reaching out to disgruntled teachers and working with them to make the changes the school clearly needs."
Jolyon Roberts, executive headteacher of Pegasus Academy Trust, which runs the school and others in the area, told the local paper he had not heard that The Sun, which recently ended a decades-long tradition of putting topless women on Page 3, was banned at the school but would have supported the move.
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"It certainly wasn't me who banned the Sun, although perhaps it is inappropriate for school," he said.
"There have been a lot of senior people down here trying to sort things out so it could have been any of them.
"I would be supportive because I feel uncomfortable with having that kind of newspaper around."
The trust took over the school in September after it was told it had to improve by education watchdog Ofsted.
There were plenty of others also outraged by the apparent ban on Britain's best selling newspaper:
Mr Roberts told the Croydon Advertiser that seven staff had resigned with effect from September because of his efforts to improve standards.
The letter sent to the paper claimed it was because of their dissatisfaction with how the school was being run.
He had not replied to a request for comment to The Sun's remarks as this story went live.