I WAS so sorry to hear last week that the Press Complaints Commission is to close after 21 years, in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

It’s going to be replaced by a new regulatory system following the Leveson inquiry into the media.

And I’m sure loads of people will be celebrating the demise of this ‘toothless’ organisation, and will be looking forward to a clampdown on the big bad press.

There will no doubt be loads of holier-than-thou waffle about how the awful media must be brought into line at last, and that a beefed-up regulator will save the public from rogue journalists.

For what it’s worth, my advice to the same public is: be afraid, be very afraid.

This is exactly what the suppressers of free speech have longed for since time began.

Tie up the press in a raft of confusing rules with dire penalties for infringements, and it’s likely little will ever again be written to upset the rich and famous.

We may soon be heading for a ludicrous situation in which the responsible media has fewer rights than, say, anonymous troublemakers who post comments on internet sites.

In some ways, it’s laughable. Newspapers up and down the land will be forced to watch their Ps and Qs in every situation, while ranting fanatics can go unchecked into internet cafes, log on and spread poison across the globe.

To set the record straight, I deplore the notion of phone hacking, as do the majority of editors. But it seems every local paper now has to pay for the actions of the News of the World. The irony is that when new regulations do come in, I bet the national papers will be the ones smart enough to find the loopholes. And if they end up fined, well they can afford it – unlike legions of small papers.

No one doubts that News International should have been punished over phone hacking.

But the Press Complaints Commission’s decision to close over its apparent failures in its response to the saga is going too far. I haven’t yet heard that the police force, which initially appeared equally ineffective over the hacking, is to close as well. And, after all, wasn’t it a newspaper, the Guardian, which actually exposed the scandal? In other words, the press did regulate itself.

It’s been said the decision to close the PCC and reform it is an attempt to head off state regulation. My fear, however, is it will open the door to disaster and we will end up with a nightmare once everyone has stopped meddling with it.

Last summer, I wrote in this column just how much I valued the work of the PCC and how it was far from toothless.

Just to recap, the PCC acts on behalf of the common man, is free to use, is very fast and doggedly calls editors to account.

If the PCC is not satisfied, it can adjudicate against a newspaper and we have to publish a statement condemning ourselves. Publications of such statements are a source of shame to any editor and could well end up with us being sacked.

In 2010, the PCC received more than 7,000 complaints but was contacted in addition to that many thousands of times. It issued more than 100 private advisory notes/desist requests to journalists with a near 100 per cent success rate.

All this is now history because it is going to be replaced. Hopefully, my fears will be proven wrong and an even better version will arise from the ashes. Apparently, the replacement will have three units: one dealing with standards and compliance, one representing complaints and mediation and one offering legally binding solutions to libel complaints through arbitration.

It could work and it may indeed be better. But I can’t help fearing they threw the baby out with the bathwater on this one.

I’m happy to be proven wrong in a couple of years (best guess is 2014 for the new body) if this is a better system. But in the meantime, be afraid be very afraid.

It could be that it is the responsible press which ends up rendered toothless and unable to expose scandal and wrong-doing – while the irresponsible rest of the world carries on happily on the internet doing and saying exactly what it likes without fear of regulation and retribution.

The asylum will really belong to the lunatics at that point.