First came the reports of the late-night incident which led to the teenager's death - with the news bulletins and media reports following the 'teenager kicked and stamped to death by racists' line. A line which days later was confirmed by the police to be completely false. Mohammed, it seems, fell and hit his head while running away from the trouble.

No matter to the national press though. The Sun reporter Anila Baig, on Thursday August 28 - days after police confirmed there were no injuries consistent with kicking - wrote "a mob of hoodies took turns stamping on his head".

She was writing in her feature, headlined as Battle of Hatings, which was the first of the predictable follow ups to be run.

In this article she interviews a handful of locals (who seem to be talking about asylum seekers and not students) and a some language students - one of whom claims "People look at your with hatred, you can see in their eyes they think we shouldn't be here."

More worrying, and certainly far less balanced though, was the irresponsible description by the reporter of Hastings as "a racial battleground".

However, if The Sun's sensational approach was predictable, it was not alone.

The Daily Mail, on August 30, carried a two page feature on Hastings under the banner The New Battle of Hastings.

The journalist, Sue Reid, describes Hastings as "a town in meltdown" - conveniently mentioning a few court cases she read on The Observer's website to prove her very one sided argument.

She rounds off by writing: "Today the people of Hastings are fighting another battle - against a pernicious and often racist underclass. And the truth is, they are losing."

Most damning of the journalism though was the choice of photograph. A large image of a boarded up property on the seafront. The only problem being that that particular photograph was taken more than 10 years ago and the derelict building has since been cleaned up beyond recognition.

Council tourism boss Kevin Boorman is rightly worried about the impact such reporting could have on visitor numbers.