Lucy Meadows: Trial By Tabloid, Death By Tabloid?

And with a tragic timing this story broke today; 'Sex Change Teacher Lucy Meadows Found Dead'.
Is there a connection between this and how the tabloids treated her?
[More in this Guardian article].
In December Richard Littlejohn wrote a piece about Lucy - 'He's Not Just In The Wrong Job, He's In The Wrong Body' ["He"?] - so offensive the Mail removed it from their website - it's cached here.  
There's now an e-petition calling for the Mail to sack Littlejohn - you can sign it here.
I'm very sceptical/cynical about these things, mainly as I don't think the people they are usually targeted on care much about them.
It's also not clear at the moment exactly why Lucy killed herself, though she had repeatedly complained of press harassment - and the hounding of her by the media went much further than Littlejohn's article.
But - rather obviously - I think it's good that people express their anger and revulsion over this.
I can't see the Mail sacking Littlejohn, but as with the outrage over Jan Moir's column on the death of Stephen Gately maybe it will curb some of their most odious and hurtful excesses.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if Richard Littlejohn's next Mail column is devoted to complaining about Twitterstorms and how he's being "harrassed" by some supposed "PC army" and some "Trans cabal".
Just like Suzanne Moore did.
Which brings us back to Julie Burchill...

PS This began as a postscript to the Burchill/PCC post below, but expanded along with the story.

PPS There is now a second petition from a rather strange-sounding American group, who I can't be arsed to credit.
This seems silly and counterproductive, and I can't see what purpose it serves - apart from as a self-serving PR exercise for themselves.