Going "soft" on perverts.

If there was ever a chance that Dominic Mohan would be less overbearing compared to his predecessor when it comes to the protection of children, then that's gone out the window with today's "exclusive" claim that a "[Q]uarter of pervs go free", as alluded to on the front page. The actual article, by Brian Flynn, has to be one of the least illuminating and most lazy examples of supposed investigative journalism in quite some time:

THE Sun can today reveal how Britain's soft justice system allows hundreds of child sex fiends to escape court action.

In a special investigation, we found more than a quarter of child abusers are let off with a caution by cops.

The shock figures emerged in responses by 33 police forces to Freedom of Information demands by The Sun.

This then is a method which has been previously pioneered by the mid-market tabloids, where they submit FoI requests to the country's police forces, not all of which reply, with an article to write already in mind. Both the Express and the Mail have used this to supposedly show how many "foreigners" are either committing murders or rapes in this country, and has been dealt with in the past by 5CC. Those requests though have been much narrower in scope to this one, and also far better defined and explained. The Sun's request, presumably, as it is never properly outlined, is for the numbers of individuals who have been charged and cautioned with "sexual and physical abuse offences against kids", their best description, not mine. This understandably covers a whole multitude of sins, some, but which by no means all, are covered in this document explaining the changes which came in under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

To start off with, only 33 forces have responded when there are 44 in total, so the statistics are by no means complete. Here though are the shock figures:

In total, 8,043 people who committed sexual and physical abuse offences against kids were charged in the year to April, while 2,764 were given a caution.

Just to illustrate that these 2,764 given a caution hardly cover the most serious offences, the paper then gives the only breakdown in actual offences in the entire piece:

Even beasts who rape under-age children can get just a ticking off. The statistics included 20 who raped girls under 16 and eight who attacked young boys.

So only 28 who admitted to rape were given a caution. For someone to only be given a caution for such a serious crime, especially against a child, there has to be significant mitigating circumstances. One of these is explained in the above document on the Sexual Offences Act 2003: since the act was passed, anyone under 12, regardless of whether they consented to sex or not, is considered to have been raped if they take part in any sexual activity involving penetration. This still applies even if the person they have sex with is 13 or below the age of consent themselves. Since it's hardly in the public interest to prosecute to the full extent of the law young children for such serious offences, a caution will often be the best option. The changes in the law were additionally not meant to be used when, for example, a 15-year-old consents to sex with a 17-year-old, unless there was abuse or exploitation involved, but this is not always the case, hence a caution will again sometimes be given. Other examples of where a caution will be considered the better option will be where the offence involved a member of the family of the victim, which the SOA expanded to include step-family members and others. The Sun also adds its own explanations as to why a caution rather than a prosecution will sometimes be best option:

Legal sources said reasons for the caution option include victims not wanting to go through a court process, perhaps if the attacker was a family member.

Evidence could also be flimsy, meaning a fiend could get off whereas under a caution guilt is assured. But one source said: "It must always be a last option."

Well, precisely, and the Sun has provided no evidence whatsoever that suggests this isn't the case. All it has done is present some out of context figures with no information whatsoever as to what offences have actually been committed, which would help us to ascertain whether a caution is a reasonable end result to the offence or not. It's also provided no comparison figures as to whether the number of cautions has actually gone up or down year on year, which would further help to show whether or not this is a change in policy and genuine further evidence of it being a mockery of Labour "being tough on crime". In short, it's a typical piece of tabloid journalism, so flimsy that as soon as you look at it in any detail you notice that it's coming apart at the seams. It's an example of doing the very bare minimum as an attempt to prove an already held hypothesis.

This is without even considering the Sun's leader column on the subject:

SHOCKING figures show one in four proven child abusers - including child rapists -- get off with a caution. That means almost 3,000 known paedophiles are on the loose - many of them likely to re-offend.

The Sun presents nothing whatsoever that justifies calling those given a caution paedophiles, and it also hasn't the slightest basis for claiming that "many of them" are likely to re-offend. This is just base scaremongering using the terms which are most likely to cause fear in both children and adults.

Raping girls under 16 - or even gang-raping a boy - goes virtually unpunished.

Except the article shows that only 28 cases of rape out of a total of 10,807 offences were concluded with a caution - we can't even tell how many cases of rape were prosecuted as the Sun doesn't provide us with those figures. That's hardly going virtually unpunished. The Sun does however have an explanation:

But there is a culture of idle incompetence at the very top - with both politicians and police chiefs. The message from on high is: Jails are full so turn a blind eye.

This is abject nonsense. The jails being full has very little to no influence whatsoever on the CPS deciding who to prosecute and who to not. The courts and judges may indeed be influenced by lack of space when it comes to passing sentence, but the CPS simply decides on the merits and circumstances of the case. The possibility of prison doesn't enter into it.

This stunning failure of justice is a crime in itself.

And innocent children pay the price.

As will innocent children and adults who believe the fearmongering which the Sun fails to even begin to back up.

Paedophil(i)e Dectector

Today's Sun has one of its regular articles seemingly published to whip up public hysteria over paedophiles. This particular article covers a government trial which will test freed rapists and paedophiles to see if they have reformed using a lie detector/polygraph.

The Sun states that they are infallible:

It is virtually impossible to trick a lie-detector because it picks up signals of fear, which emanate from the hypothalamus gland in the neck.

No, they're not!

What is the evidence regarding their accuracy? Well, the American Psychological Association (APA) states that they are no good at actually detecting whether or not someone is lying. Amongst other things there are no studies into any placebo-like effects, i.e. it is not possible to know whether the results are accurate or whether they are simply due to someone believing them to be accurate. There is also the slight problem in that it is entirely possible that a person could be telling the truth but is nervous while doing the test, which would lead to results that suggest that they are lying. Conversely, someone whom is lying may be capable of controlling their emotions, which would lead to results that would suggest that they are telling the truth.

What about the "Top US lie-detector expert" that the Sun refers to? As far as I can make out, he is a business man with an honorary qualification from the Hawaii Organization of Polygraph Examiners (who appear to have no internet presence at all...), the Texas Association Of Polygraph Examiners but he doesn't appear to be on their list of members, but the company is (but this hasn't been updated since October 2007) and the American Polygraph Association, whose membership list is currently being upgraded. He's labelled as a BS - the US name for a BSc - but it doesn't say what it is in.

So what can we say in summary? The best bet is to quote the APA

For now, although the idea of a lie detector may be comforting, the most practical advice is to remain skeptical about any conclusion wrung from a polygraph.

Given the difficulties in also establishing the "expert"'s qualifications, I can only concur.

Of course, if anyone is able to find any more about the "expert", leave a comment.

Wilby on the Alfie Patten saga.

There's an outstanding piece in the Graun today by Peter Wilby on the Sun's coverage of the Aflie Patten saga. Not only does he disclose that the reports came to an abrupt end last Wednesday after the High Court stepped in, something that doesn't seem to have been reported elsewhere unless I missed it, but he completely nails the Sun on one point especially, one which I missed in my own post on the affair (which I didn't really think was appropriate for here, as it didn't directly concern hypocrisy or lies):

In truth, the story was about the media - not schools, the NHS or welfare. Several columnists nostalgically recalled the days when a teenage pregnancy was hushed up. They didn't mention how the media-created stardom of Alfie and Chantelle suggests premature parenthood has become a route to instant riches and fame. Once, when a girl got pregnant, every teenage boy in the neighbourhood would deny he ever laid a finger on her. Last week, they fell over themselves to claim fatherhood of Chantelle's baby - two candidates were named - presumably in the belief they might get a small slice of the rewards on offer.

If Alfie is indeed the father, he and Chantelle and their child might recover from their premature parenthood to lead successful and fulfilling lives. The media, however, have greatly reduced their chances of doing so. I fear this affair brings statutory press regulation a step closer. The Sun's editor, Rebekah Wade, claims to care deeply about children and has campaigned tirelessly for the names and addresses of convicted abusers to be available to parents. I suggest she looks into Alfie's eyes in that picture on her own front page and asks herself what she sees there.

Perhaps she will join another campaign, to make the addresses of Sun reporters also available to parents. You never know: there might be one near you and your children.

Rebekah Wade speaks to the nation.

Billed as her first major speech in six years, or rather appearance, as the Sun's editor, Rebekah Wade, is notoriously shy of the limelight, the invitation for her to deliver this year's Hugh Cudlipp lecture was a curious one. Although the press is too coy to mention it, the real reason why Wade has not defended her newspaper in person when controversy has surrounded it, instead sending out Grahan Dudman to do it, is for fear that she'd embarrass herself, as she did when she rather unfortunately told the truth to a parliamentary committee by saying that her paper paid the police for information. Then there was of course her arrest and night spent in the cells for whacking her then husband, Ross Kemp, after a night on the booze. Again, interestingly, most of the media connived to cover up her split from Kemp, with Private Eye reporting that Les Hinton had phoned round the papers pleading with them not to report on it. For an editor whom in her speech defends vigorously the right to print whatever the hell she likes about those supposedly in the public eye, this strikes as rather hypocritical behaviour.

There is perhaps though another reason why Wade has not ventured into the public gaze for the past few years, which quickly becomes apparent when you read the actual content of her speech: she has nothing of any great interest to say. You don't need to be an intellectual to edit an newspaper, and Wade is probably excellent at what she does, but an orator or a debater she is obviously not. Compared to Paul Dacre, who likewise is supposedly shy of the limelight, his speeches, which included the very same lecture a couple of years back, are furious and infuriating by equal measure. He might be completely wrong, and arrogant and insulting with it, but he can argue his point well enough. Wade however lacks the courage or self-belief to adequately cover the contradictions throughout, leaving gaping holes in her material.

She might well have been then as Roy Greenslade suggests, charming in person, but none of that comes across in the somewhat disjointed full text offered by both the Guardian and the Press Gazette. Starting on somewhat surer ground, she illustrates that those cutting costs without reinvesting the savings back into journalism itself are the ones that are losing the most sales. Unsurprisingly, the Mirror and the Daily Star are the ones that have lost the most sales over the past year. Even this though leaves out some other much needed explanatory detail: Wade doesn't mention that her own paper has reignited the vicious price war, with the paper selling for just 20p across London and the south-east. As has been noted time and again, because of Murdoch's other vast interests, he can afford to do so; his competitors simply can't, and attempting to compete is beyond stupid. Naturally, Richard Desmond has therefore slashed the cost of the Star to... 20p. Although December is always a quiet month for newspapers sales, the Sun fell below 3 million last month, just as it did in 2007. Across the board though all of the tabloids are declining, and falling at far faster rates than their broadsheets rivals and sisters. It indicates the inevitable: that as the internet increasingly takes over as the main source for the celeb tittle-tattle, scandal-mongering and populist wittering which they specialise in, the tabloids are facing the end of their business models. The broadsheets, by contrast, although still giving away their content, can survive thanks to their quality and reader dedication, which simply isn't there among the red-tops and middle-market.

Wade's rallying cry then, that it will be "the quality of our journalism [that] makes or breaks our industry, not the recession", is one of those statements that makes you wonder if she really knows what she's saying. Just the recent Glen Jenvey incident, when the paper splashed on a complete untrue concocted story which accused completely innocent Muslims of being extremists, shows how much it cares about accuracy. It's no surprise to learn that a new poll found that only 19% of those questioned in this country had trust in newspapers. This is a direct consequence of the tabloids' often irresponsible and downright untrue journalism, which unfairly infects opinion of other newspapers and broadcasters, yet still editors like Dacre and Wade defend their "quality" despite its effects.

Wade's second theme, campaigning journalism, offers us her insight into both the recent Baby P affair and the more notorious "naming and shaming" of paedophiles she directed while editor of the News of the World, but first she mentions the paper's continuing support for the Help for Heroes charity, including her own trip to a base in Helmand. She describes a warm welcome and how everyone was wearing the wristbands, but this jars somewhat with the far more cynical views of the newspaper on the Army Reserve Rumour Service message board in response to the paper's Military Awards, which Wade also mentions, and which readers themselves also seemed less than overwhelmed with. She takes credit for the increasing support for the army and turnout at parades, without providing any evidence whatsoever that it was the Sun "wot did it". Similarly, while she calls for more reporting of the war in Afghanistan, she doesn't mention that her paper's own coverage of it never for so much of a second doubts that it's for a good cause or that the battle is being won. Whenever the topic is discussed in the paper's leader column, it inevitably turns to the argument that fighting the Taliban makes us safer, when again there is evidence to suggest the opposite is the case. Blind loyalty is all that it has to offer, when constructive criticism is always the best policy.

Moving on to Sarah's law, what becomes clear is Wade's utter refusal to take responsibility, both for her own actions, and also for the actions of those who read her newspaper and decide to take the law into their own hands. Illuminating firstly is that it came about after she arrived unannounced on Sara Payne's doorstep; not apparently concerned about whether either she or her husband were in a fit state to be interviewed, or to set in motion what became a crusade which if implemented would most likely have the opposite effect to that which is intended, Wade immediately had her witch-hunt. Her own contempt for the truth is also apparent when she castigates the other media for its reporting of what happened on one Portsmouth estate:

Parts of the media went on the attack with a blatant disregard for the facts of the campaign or more importantly their readers’ opinions on the matter.

After we published the first list, a group of mothers from an impoverished housing estate in Portsmouth took to the streets to protest. The BBC described them as ‘an angry lynch mob’.

What the BBC did not report was that the mothers had just discovered that Victor Burnett, a paedophile with 14 convictions for raping and abusing young boys between the ages of four and nine, had been rehoused amongst them unmonitored by the authorities.

Totally unaware of his background, the residents had complained for years about Burnett’s inappropriate behaviour towards their children but their voices, until then, had remained unheard.

How else should the media have described protests such as these, as reported by the Telegraph:

The torch paper was lit by the naming of Victor Burnett, a convicted serial child abuser, in the News of the World: he was a resident of Paulsgrove and was hounded from his home by a chanting mob. Events moved out of control: the rest of Britain looked on in horror and fascination as windows were smashed, cars burned, and angelic, banner-waving five-year-olds happily chanted words that sounded ugly falling from childish mouths. "Sex case, sex case. Hang 'em, hang 'em, hang 'em." Five families were moved from the estate: the police said that none had links with sex offences.

There was no evidence that Burnett had re-offended while on Paulsgrove, but at least he was correctly identified: others had their houses burgled, windows smashed and their cars set on fire. Wade calls the "naming and shaming" her responsibility, which it was. She however hides behind the readers themselves, critical of how others disregarded "readers' opinions", as if readers' opinions are always unimpeachable or always right. As Nick Davies pointed out in Flat Earth News, one of the rules of production is giving the readers what they want, but what you think the readers want is not always the same thing. The key is that it's cheap, while challenging orthodoxy is expensive and unpredictable.

That Wade has no interest in the ultimate consequences of her own actions could not be more illustrated by the end result of the paper's Baby P campaign. Here's how she describes it:

Campaigns provide a unique connection to the public especially when the subject matter is of a serious nature.For me, nothing can illustrate this connection better than our recent Baby P campaign.

The public outcry was deafening. And we began our fight for justice with a determination to expose the lack of accountability and responsibility for Baby P’s brutal death.

We delivered 1.5 million signatures to Downing Street and the collective power worked.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls was forced to use emergency legislation to ensure that those responsible were held to account. We received many many thousands of letters at The Sun about our Baby P coverage.

I’d like to read you one: ‘I have never been a huge fan of The Sun, however I thank you for the coverage of Baby P. I am so grateful for the campaign. This is not a modern day witch-hunt but a petition for justice. Please, please do not relent.'

In contrast, I’d like to quote from an article in... The Guardian.

“Full of fury and repellent hysteria, but isn’t that part of the game? This is less about the creation of public emotion and more about its manipulation."

This knee-jerk tabloid kicking reaction is just dull.

But total disregard and respect for public opinion never ceases to amaze me.

They demanded accountability.

And as a result of the campaign, some, just some, of those responsible were removed from office without compensation.

Or as this Sun reader wrote: ‘The tabloid press, which the arty-farty press like to look down on so much, has shown that it prides morality over political correctness.’

Again, there's the lack of evidence that Shoesmith and others wouldn't have been suspended or sacked if the Sun hadn't ran its campaign. Some sort of action was always going to be taken. Again, Wade hides behind supposed public opinion: it's what "they" want, not what she wants or what's good for Murdoch's bank balance. It's not about directing the blame onto other people because those actually responsible for Baby P's death couldn't be named and demonised themselves because the cogs of justice are still whirring in connected cases, it's about so-called justice, or even morality. The result? A new boss has been installed in Haringey, on double what Sharon Shoesmith was earning, while the borough is now so desperate for social workers that the head of the department made an appeal across London for some to be lent him. Children less safe, those who worked on the case who were already likely distraught had their lives ruined, and now the service, what's left of it, costs more. A more ringing endorsement of a Sun justice campaign could hardly be imagined, and yet still Wade feels fit to quote a reader who invokes morality. This so-called morality was presumably what lead the comment sections on the Sun's articles to be shut down, where previously already suicidal social workers had been encouraged to kill themselves. The only more immoral paper in this country is the Daily Mail.

Filled with such chutzpah, it's little wonder that Wade then goes on to make an even more outrageous statement, this time involving press freedom:

This country is full of regulators, lawyers and politicians eager to frame and implement legislation that would constrain freedoms hard won over centuries.

We are already losing those freedoms. Privacy legislation is being created by the drip, drip of case law in the High Court without any reference to parliament.

This from the editor of an newspaper which as the Heresiarch has already pointed out, has never so much as raised its voice once against this government's incessant attacks on civil liberties. In fact, on nearly every occasion it's supported them, whether it be ID cards, detention without trial or its constant bugbear, the Human Rights Act, which it opposed while the government introduced it. She's also completely wrong: parliament passed the HRA, which now so apparently threatens the tabloids' and their dying business model by potentially restricting the scandals they can report. This is also an issue on which public opinion is not necessarily on their side: few cared about Max Mosley, or even knew who he was until the News of the World exposed him while blackmailing the women who spanked him. The HRA doesn't affect real scandal, like the already monikered "Erminegate", which is why no one other than the tabloids and their editors care, and why the Guardian was completely right to print Mosley's own views on press freedom, which she criticises, no doubt intending to be humourous, as "self-flagellation". When she talks about quality, a old man being spanked by prostitutes is the sort of story she means.

Having regaled stories about how much the Sun listens to its readers, she concludes with a few questions which can be happily answered:

We need to ask ourselves: Can we unite to fight against a privacy law that has no place in a democracy?

Obviously not, as firstly there isn't one, isn't going to be one, and even if there was, it wouldn't be supported when it would only cover sex scandals involving celebrities. Next!

Can we agree that self-regulation is the best way to deal with the occasional excesses of a free press?

No, not when the regulator is completely toothless and cannot impose financial sanctions or front page apologies on newspapers when the "excesses" are serious enough, as they often are.

Can we have a press that has the courage and commitment to listen to and fight for its readers?

Not when no thought is put into whether the consequences of that courage and commitment will actually result in a positive outcome.

Can we survive this economic climate if we keep investment in journalism at the heart of what we do?

Not if what you call journalism is whatever's on the front page of tomorrow's Sun (Jade Goody and a footballer being interviewed about a rape).

The Sun v the Criminal Justice System and Gays

Once again there's a nice neutral headline in our favourite tabloid newspaper:

"Barmy Euro law let pervs abuse"

The article is about how two registered sex offenders were allowed to share a flat which is clearly the fault of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Sun claims that the police felt they were unable to tell their neighbours that they were in the area, because of a

"fear of being in breach of European Human Rights legislation on cohabiting same-sex partners."

What a load of rubbish. The ECHR doesn't say anything like this. In fact, homosexuality is not mentioned at all, presumably because it was drafted in the 50s when homosexuality was illegal in a lot of countries, including the UK. The nearest there is article 8: Right to respect for private and family life, which itself stems from an English case from the early 1600s that established the principle of "An Englishman's home is his castle". Effectively the Sun is raging against one of the basic principles of English common law: Why does the Sun hate our freedoms?

What is more likely to be the reason for this lack of action - if indeed that is what actually happened - is because of how people reacted in summer 2000 to the News of the World's anti-paedophile campaign, including innocent people being attacked. In any event, they were on the sex offenders' register, so it was already a matter of public knowledge.

The Sun also appears to be gay-bashing. It states that the men started a relationship in prison and then in the next sentence states they then targeted the kiddies. The Sun seems to be implying that homosexuality and paedophilia are one and the same or are in some way connected. The only people who take this line are those of a nutty, right-wing persuasion (see the Google search for homosexuality and paedophilia for examples). It implies this even though later on it states that one of the offenders had two kids.

The only positive to this article is that the Sun doesn't explicitly say that the ECHR was forced upon us by the Eurocrats, but the fact it uses the term "Euro" shows what it wants people to think.

The lies surrounding the reporting

Virginia Wheeler was sent by the Sun to report Gary Glitters return home.

Virginia Wheeler of The Sun:

I SHUDDERED as creepy Gary Glitter stroked my arm and called me “sweetie” yesterday.

The pop pervert sat by me on a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok after being released from a Vietnamese jail.

Paedophile Glitter, who insisted he was heading back to Britain, ran a hand along my arm and said: “Tell me, sweetie, what is the weather like in England? I’m not used to the cold any more. I’ve got so used to the heat in Asia.”

Oh. Did he, now? Paul Gadd said that to you, Virginia?

I copied the following from the scan below because it needs to appear in searches. I can be vindictive like that sometimes.

Private Eye, Issue 1218:

A SENSATIONAL scoop for Sun hack Virginia Wheeler on August 20: "WORLD EXCLUSIVE. Perv Glitter is free and tells the Sun:I'm Coming Home."
Wheeler described how she "shuddered as creepy Gary Glitter stroked my arm and called me 'sweetie' yesterday" but nobly endured his attentions in the interests of a world exclusive. And it was well worth it: the peripatetic paedo revealed his plans to resume a music career and his fears that the English weather might seem a little chilly after three years in a Vietnamese jail.
Where did this encounter between beauty and the beast occur? "The pop pervert sat beside me on a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok," Wheeler claimed. Strange, then, that in the accompanying photos of Glitter on the plain from Vietnam to Thailand there was no sign of Wheeler in the next seat.
She was, in fact, sitting in the front row of business class while Glitter was much further back. About 10 minutes before landing, the crew moved him forward to a vacant t seat so he could make a quick getaway from the press posse. He was put three rows behind Wheeler - still quite a distance from which to fondle her arm. None of the hacks on the plane saw him touch her or speak to her at all.
Even so, Wheeler filed her "world exclusive" to Wapping. After reading what Glitter himself had allegedly told her - "I'm so glad to be going back to England...It's where my heart is and where my family are. I can't wait to see them" - the newsdesk ordered her to get on the Bangkok-to-London flight without delay as he was sure to be on it. While other hacks waited to see what happened, Wheeler duly checked in and boarded. Alas! Glitter stayed in Bangkok, feigning illness and trying desperately trying to avoid going anywhere near England.
The Sun hastily recruited a freelance to cover the ensuing shenanigans while Wheeler commenced her 12-hour flight back to Blighty.

Giving air to the "pervs"

Although, not specifically about The Sun, The Sun is mentioned heavily in an article by Peter Wilby in the Guardian on the hypocrisy of the tabloids in the treatment of Gary Glitter/Paul Gadd.

Sparked by a comment by the Daily Mails' columnist Amanda Platell

"Who gave this reptilian exhibitionist the oxygen of publicity? Who propelled him to world notoriety and made his claims for state protection legitimate?"

Strangely (or not) blaming Jaqui Smith.

The paragraph that is of most interest to us, is the following:

[the] "pervs" play an important role in defining the boundary between the respectable folk who read and produce redtop papers and what sociologists call "the other". The Sun may publish revealing pictures of women just above the age of consent, as well as of flat-chested models, sometimes dressed as young schoolgirls. Anybody who objects is roundly denounced as "politically correct". But to assure us they are not encouraging paedophilia, the redtops must denounce, even more vehemently, anybody who lays a finger on anyone aged 15 years 364 days or less. This explains why Glitter's name can never appear without being shepherded by such words as brute, evil, foul, depraved, monster, scum and, specially brought out by the Sun's Lorraine Kelly for the occasion,"toxic effluent".

.

Also a slightly shorter quote from Matthew Norman in his diary, specifically about the Sun, that is just as scathing:

We've all witnessed some horrendous abuses of power by that newspaper down the decades, but nothing, I think, as viscerally repulsive as this.

Comedy hypocrisy option.

Today's example of comedy hypocrisy via the Sun's leader page:

"WELL-MEANING parents are wasting good money on so-called multi-vitamins.

It turns out they are little more than sweets with tiny levels of nutrients — and the only healthy thing is the manufacturers’ profits.

They should be thoroughly ashamed of playing on parents’ fears."

Today's front page:

Paedophile hysteria, the Sun and the Press Complaints Commission.

Outside of the realms of hypocrisy for once and instead onto the Sun's journalistic ethics, or lack thereof. Posted today on their site is a Press Complaints Commission adjudication of a story it ran back in February (the adjudication is yet to appear on the PCC's own website):

"A woman complained to the Press Complaints Commission on behalf of her son that audio visual footage published on The Sun’s website on February 21 had been obtained in breach of Clause 10 (Clandestine devices and subterfuge) of the Code.

The complaint was upheld.

The complainant said that her son had been convicted in 2007 for possession of internet pornography. Although her son had been put on the Sex Offenders Register, the judge did not restrict his movements.

However, a journalist had secretly filmed him working in a supermarket, and had obtained a photograph of him making a delivery to a nursery school kitchen, which her son had done under instruction without breaking any rules.

The newspaper published an article on the subject, and placed the video footage on its website.

The newspaper said that there was a clear public interest. The use of subterfuge in obtaining the audiovisual footage was acceptable, as it was the only way of showing readers the complainant’s son at work in the store.

That said, the newspaper removed the footage from its website and undertook not to reuse it, unless there was a clear public interest to do so.

Adjudication

The Commission concluded that there was a considerable public interest justification for the story as a whole, given that the complainant’s son had made a delivery – as part of his job – to a children’s nursery following his conviction for distributing, making and possessing pornographic images of children.

The newspaper was entitled to highlight, and comment robustly on, this situation.

It was more difficult, however, to justify the taking and use of the audiovisual footage of the complainant’s son at work in the supermarket, given that the public interest element of the story related only to the delivery to the nursery.

The Commission has always said that there must be a powerful public interest justification for the use of undercover filming. On this occasion, there was no dispute that he worked for the supermarket, and the footage was not necessary to prove it.

There was therefore insufficient justification for the subterfuge, and the result was a breach of Clause 10 of the Code on this one specific point.

The Commission rejected other points of complaint about the article itself, which also appeared in the newspaper."

The original report is still on the Sun's website here (isn't it wonderful what putting paedophile+supermarket+nursery into Google brings up?) while the Salisbury Journal has a similar article, based on the Sun's, here.

It's immediately clear from the Sun article that the PCC adjudication is completely correct and that it could hardly have come to a different conclusion; Spencer is quite clearly wearing Sainsbury's uniform in the photograph. Why it felt the need to trail him around the supermarket itself is a mystery: is it being too cynical to wonder whether the Sun was hoping to catch him leering at a child or otherwise while he went about his work, or did so to identify the specific Sainsbury's where he was employed? It perhaps based its story around this one from just under a week earlier, where it "exposed" another paedophile working for a supermarket, this time Tesco, and in this case the video, again apparently taken through subterfuge, is still available.

Where I differ from the PCC is on whether this genuinely was in the public interest. Perhaps it could be justified if it was an article in the local paper, but this is in a national. What do the good burghers of almost anywhere other than Wiltshire care that a man with a conviction for possession of child pornography made a delivery to a nursery along with another worker? The other worker is perhaps key to the whole public interest question. If Spencer had made the delivery on his own, then perhaps it could be justified. As it is, any possibility that Spencer would have had any opportunity to abduct or abuse a child is rendered far more unlikely.

The publishing of the article raises a lot more ethical questions also. I'm sure everyone's aware of Sun editor Rebekah Wade's history, having started the notorious "name and shame" campaign whilst editor of the News of the World, resulting in anti-paedophile protests in Portsmouth and in a paediatrician having her house vandalised, so this sort of "expose" is par for the course. But what purpose exactly is it meant to achieve? While we don't know how severe the abuse (if any physical was depicted) in the 283 images he had in his possession were, the relatively light sentence he received, without any restrictions on his movements suggest that it was regarded at the less serious end of the scale. Certainly the fact that Sainsbury's kept him on, where you would expect he would come into contact with children, suggests that they also didn't regard him as any great threat. Indeed, why is the fact that he visited a nursery at all regarded as some sort of big no-no which shouldn't be crossed? If we're supposed to fear that he might have abducted or abused a child while there, why are we also not afraid that he might do the same when he's not working, or just out on the street, where he's far more likely to come across children alone or without supervision whom would be far easier to kidnap or take advantage of?

Fundamentally, what I'm attempting to address is how we deal with paedophiles as a whole. The Sun's take is pretty transparent: that they should be dealt with as harshly as possible, kept away from all children in much the same fashion, and only work in jobs where they are unlikely to come in contact with them. The question ought to be how do we rehabilitate them or help them rejoin society after such a conviction. The problem is that some, including it seems the Sun, seem to think that such a conviction means that they can be dismissed as sub-human, shunned, and in some cases denied work all together because of their past. The other approach, rather than forcing them underground, seems to be the one which Spencer and Sainsbury's in this case seem to have followed. Which is it that is likely to be more dangerous?

To be clear, I'm by no means in favour of the kind of censorship that would mean the Sun couldn't publish the story again tomorrow if it wanted to. What I do favour is examining the ethics involved in such a story and, when they seem, like in this case, to be lacking, to be heavily critical. To get a taste for the kind of thought which the Sun's story fomented, you only have to look at the comments:

"This is where supervision fails. All those convicted of child related offences should be tagged and monitored via a satelite tracking system. If they enter a forbidden zone (eg. School, nursery etc) they could be picked up immediately by police."

"They reckon for every 1 convicted there are 10 unknown perverts.when ever i am out with my 3 youngsters i am constantly watching every bloke who glances at my kids, but what can you do? You cant lock em up cause there are no prison spaces. So you have to let them get on with a normal life, and in that normal life they are going to come into contact with kids, so what's the answer? CASTRATE them, thats what they should do"

"Paedo's should not be given a job where they come into contact or go near any children. Tesco deliver my shopping and my children help the man unload the shopping from the van. I would be up in arms if I found out he was a paedo.

Children's safety and wellbeing must come first."

"Once a perv, always a perv! very dangerous sitation to be placed in. How would the conversation go, hey little girl come to the nice sainsbury man!"

"But yes, I think they should all be tagged, they should all have a marking on there head, so everyone knows what they have done, and they are easy to identify."

Although it must be noted there were a couple of dissenters.

Actually perhaps there is hypocrisy here after all: here's Lorraine Kelly from a few weeks back complaining about how we can't comfort a needy child:

"In the 14 years since my child was born, a sinister and almost hysterical mind-set has come into force. It is one that rigidly adheres to the belief that all adults are predatory beasts and there is a paedophile on every street in Britain."

I wonder which newspaper and editor helped to foster this "sinister and almost hysterical mind-set"?

And seeing as we're here, here's La Kelly in the aftermath of the Josef Fritzl case:

"The Austrian police should have a massive recruitment drive and set up a special unit to search every single cellar in their entire country. Who knows what more vile horrors would be revealed." The cops should "start arming themselves with pickaxes, torches and strong stomachs and start searching those cellars".

Oh, and the very same commentator on the dangers to your kids while away from home:

"Without becoming paranoid and wrapping your children in cotton wool, you have to be aware they can be in MORE danger on holiday than at home. Child molesters haunt holiday camps, theme parks and family resorts. You need to be on your guard."