What sort of photos would have provided more believability for you? If there were shots of all parties beating each other bloody, it would have been terribly easy to call those photos "staged" as well.
At the moment this story is being carried by a number of UK papers in addition to the Daily Mail
'Tagged criminal moved into our house' - Mirror.co.uk
24dash.com v2 beta » News » Local Government » Couple 'forced to live' with criminal lodger
News Crime JPs 'let a thug live with us' The Sun HomePageNews
Married couple forced to house criminal Metro.co.uk
BBC NEWS UK England Bristol-Somerset Loophole leads to unwanted guest
“What sort of photos would have provided more believability for you? “
Perhaps something a bit less staged.
Hypothetical question - if the above house is yours, and I am the parolee living in your house under government compulsion, will you pose in your living room with me for the media to take pictures of us all drinking coffee, as above? Look at the picture above and tell me you would take that pose.
That photo is staged, and staged in a way adversarial parties wouldn’t agree to do.
All the tabloid media can carry this story, but the staged photos tell me there is more (or less) going on that is being said, one way or another. It could be as simple as the girl’s parents having agreed to let him stay but then decided (or others decided) to attempt to get some publicity by misrepresenting matters.
Call me terribly cynical, but I believe print stories about non-public persons are 90% fabrication. Stuff like this sells papers, after all....