England’s ace all-rounder Ben Stokes on Tuesday (September 17) took a media outlet “The Sun” to the task for sensationalizing a personal tragedy of his family.

Taking to Twitter, Stokes posted a lengthy statement which reads: “Today the Sun has been fit to publish extremely painful, sensitive and personal details concerning events in the private lives of my family, going back more than 31 years.”

“It is hard to find words that adequately describe such low and despicable behaviour, disguised as journalism. I cannot conceive of anything more immoral, heartless or contemptuous to the feeling and circumstances of my family,” the statement further read.

Stokes also termed it as the “lowest form of journalism” before adding that “we need to take a serious look at how we allow our press to behave.”

The Sun has reported that Stokes had a half-brother and sister who were both murdered in New Zealand by his mother's former partner in 1988 – three years before Stokes' birth.

“The killer Richard Dunn, ex of Ben’s mother Deb, out of jealousy shot Tracey, eight, and Andrew, four, before turning the gun on himself in April 1988,” the report stated.

“Dunn had weekend custody of the children and shot them both dead before turning the gun on himself in April 1988,” the news report added.

The tragic events have not been spoken about in public before and it was during that period Deb gave birth to Stokes, fathered by rugby coach Gerard Stokes of New Zealand.

Ben Stokes has been in terrific form lately. He was England’s best cricketer in their maiden ODI World Cup triumph in July and also played a key role in drawing the just-concluded Ashes series 2-2.