Sainsbury’s supermarket is once again in trouble, after they covered up this month’s copy of Attitude magazine – and left a scantily clad woman on the cover of a lads’ magazine alone.

Twitter user JP said he saw the magazine with a ‘modesty cover’ at Sainsbury’s High Holborn branch, opposite the company’s head office, at lunchtime today (Tuesday) – and added that he went instead to shop at nearby Marks & Spencer.

Sainsbury’s Twitter customer service said that they ‘use modesty covers for a range of publications – including Loaded, Zoo, Nuts, Bizarre, Front and Attitude‘ – but that this doesn’t stretch to FHM, regardless of how few clothes the female model is wearing.

The magazine, which was covered by a plastic sheet with the magazine’s name on, shows no nudity at all. Meanwhile, the WH Smith shop across the road had not covered this issue up, displaying it as clearly as any other on the shelf.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told So So Gay: ‘We have previously contacted the distributor of Attitude magazine with a view to remove the modesty cover on this title. The distributor agreed that while the cover of this magazine is now generally suitable for display, there could be future issues where it may not be.

‘This is something we regularly review along with taking guidance from the Professional Publishers Association. On this occasion, FHM has been placed on a lower shelf by mistake. It should be displayed further back where the cover is less visible.’

Sainsbury’s has previously caused controversy by covering up Attitude but not FHM, as So So Gay reported back in 2012; and there were protests at their Brighton store in October last year, when a security guard ordered a female couple to stop kissing – because a woman had said that she was ‘concerned for the safety of her child’.