Arthur Batchelor, shown with a relative, said he was singled out by the Iranians because he was the youngest of the captives. Batchelor, 20, "thought the worst" due to a guard's behavior after his capture.

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It was the British Ministry of Defense's new policy for allowing marines and sailors freed by Iran last week to sell stories about their captivity to the media. But the change in long-standing rules against paid interviews lasted barely a day.

The government beat a hasty retreat Monday under withering criticism that the fees, reportedly as high as six figures, were unseemly and a slap at families of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The appearance of the first paid interviews also brought new criticism that the 15 crew members yielded too easily to Iranian pressure to make confessions and apologies. Some worried that the crew's actions revealed a loss of Britain's famed "stiff upper lip" in tough times.

"The sailors and marines held in Iran have been so compliant and have already said so much that they have caused excruciating embarrassment to many people in this country," a retired colonel, Bob Stewart, wrote in The Times newspaper.

Defense Secretary Des Browne said earlier in the day that pending completion of a review of the regulations governing paid interviews, service personnel were now barred from accepting fees for talking about their military experiences.

The announcement does not affect any of the freed crew members who already accepted fees for talking to journalists but bars all service members from making new deals with media outlets, the Defense Ministry said. Two such interviews appeared Monday, but it was unknown if others had already sold their stories.

The first paid interviews appeared Monday in The Sun and Daily Mirror newspapers, with The Sun bagging the most sought-after sailor, Faye Turney, the only woman among the captives. Financial terms were not disclosed, but other media reported the amount paid was in six figures.

The stories came out a day after Iranian state television broadcast a video showing the captives smiling and laughing while playing chess, watching soccer on TV and eating at a long table.

Turney, however, told The Sun that she was separated from her 14 male colleagues and held in isolation for days at a time, echoing reports of her treatment made earlier by others in the freed crew.

Turney, 25, said her captors led her to fear she was being measured for a coffin, told her all her comrades had been sent home and forced her to strip to her underpants.

The crux of her story, however, was that her "confession" that the crew's two inflatable boats intruded into Iranian waters was false and made under duress.

She said she would donate an unspecified portion of her fee to benefit the crew of her ship, the frigate HMS Cornwall, and their families.

The Daily Mirror published the story of Arthur Batchelor, 20, who said he was singled out by the Iranian captors as the youngest of the group.

"A guard kept flicking my neck with his index finger and thumb. I thought the worst," Batchelor, recalled of the first moments after being captured.

Reg Keys, whose son Thomas was killed in Iraq four years ago, said he believed the government was using the freed crew to pursue a propaganda battle with Iran, and he found that offensive.

"There are people serving in Iraq with possibly far more interesting stories who are not allowed to talk to the media," Keys said. "When my son died, his colleagues were not allowed to speak to their families about it, let alone the press."

The Defense Ministry had announced Sunday that it was lifting its previous policy of blocking serving personnel from entering into financial arrangements with news media, describing the crew's captivity as "exceptional circumstances."

Michael Heseltine, an ex-defense secretary, was "profoundly shocked" by the decision to allow the paid interviews.

Six-figure-fee reports generate heated criticism