To think the BBC just mispresented baby Preston's killer (and in way that was favourable to the killer) ?

Quote :"I surprised anyone is prepared to post what you have posted."

Note that I said broadcast news.

Here are the ofcom rules:

5.1: News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality.
5.2: Significant mistakes in news should normally be acknowledged and corrected on air quickly (or, in the case of BBC ODPS, corrected quickly). Corrections should be appropriately scheduled (or, in the case of BBC ODPS, appropriately signaled to viewers).

Note 5.2. When you see an apology made for something that has been broadcast, it is because of this rule. So when you say they were caught out, and this applies to any UK broadcast news, what actually happens is an error is spotted and they need to acknowledge and correct the article. This is for broadcast news.

The rules are here:

Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy (ofcom.org.uk)

I think j you’ve misread the article.

Yet here you both are - 9 pages in. You always had the option to scroll past a thread about the 'horrific case that you can't deal with'....but you chose to stop, read, observe what people were saying, sharing and linking and then comment multiple times....

If a person can’t handle the detail and then discusses it endlessly, that suggests to me that they’re trying to process it. It’s not always possible to do that in real life, often feels to raw or maybe don’t know others who want to discuss it.

For others there is a vested interest through their work etc and it can be useful to understand/learn.

I’m more confused by someone who comes to post that they find it weird that people are discussing something. If you’ve no interest, why are you here?

Ah, it is the “Kinder Kuche Kirche” ones proclaiming all children need a mother’s love and that’s why men shouldn’t be allowed to adopt that I side-eye (yes ideally of course children would stay with their warm, caring and capable biological mother, but if they are in care it is way past that point)

I think in these cases one partner drives this and the other goes along. Doesn’t make them less culpable but I think the motivation is different.

It seems multiple things were happening at he same time. This couple were clearly paedophiles and got the baby for the purposes of abusing him sexually.

That doesn’t mean that they intended to also abuse him physically/murder him (aside from the obvious physical harm the sexual abuse would have caused as a by product of that abuse). Usually people doing this would want to stay undetected, so they could carry on doing as long as they can get away with.

I think what the Judge’s comments related to were that the situation was exacerbated by them also struggling with the basics and taking the stress out physically on the baby.

Both things could be happening at the same time, almost independent of each other…however I do think in a case such as this, that it’s likely that the sexual abuse and injuries caused by that, made the baby more difficult generally to manage as he would be afraid of his ‘parents’ and be in physical pain, which probably means the two things did link together.

What has shocked me more about this case, isn’t what the ‘parents’ did, as there will always be deprived people in society…but now many professionals failed to identify the problems and act, social workers and medical professionals and then also teachers/school staff who one of them was asking to source prescription drugs from and also confiding feeling of wanting to harm the baby, who although it wasn’t a child at the school, would have had a lot of safeguarding training and so should have been reporting it.

The only person who obviously seemed to notice a problem was the foster mother who asked for some continued contact and raised concerns, but even her concerns were more just a feeling something wasn’t right…she saw it without having seen all the medical records and other information…so why didn’t anyone else?

It really is

It’s not just the drama but the horrific details
they’re interested in. It’s disturbing.

Nor do I luckily. It’s almost like people are way too invested in the drama of the situation

I totally agree. Some posters on some of these threads are even trawling over abuse cases, posting links, picking apart cases and surmising details it’s deeply disturbing. I don’t know anybody in real life who does this.

Maybe it’s me but if I come across something so horrific I can’t deal with it, I don’t spend hours discussing every detail. It feels ghoulish and disrespectful to a child that died

I get tired of the ‘give me 5 minutes with them alone’ comments but I think overall people are trying to get their heads around what happened.

I just find it odd that people who apparently can’t cope with the details but will stay on a thread for hours discussing them.

I know I think it’s weird and disturbing.

I think because it is so horrific, and the photos show such a sweet little baby. There was similar coverage of Sara Sharif, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Star Hobson, right back to Victoria Climbie.

I agree there are some posters who are obsessed with the idea that all gay men are nonces and shouldn’t be around children, but I don’t think that is the majority view. And I haven’t really seen that on this thread.

I will get flamed for this but I feel there is something really grim about the way so many posters have flocked to the myriad of threads to pick apart every element of this case.

I wondered the same thing. I can just about see that one person could be depraved enough to abuse a baby - simply because I know it happens. I cannot see how your partner could come home from work and say “how was the baby today”, and the other parent could admit they raped him, and suggest the other parent does too. And instead of phoning the police, the partner just joins in. And this then happens repeatedly until the baby dies. It is honestly just completely beyond my comprehension.

It’s not necessary to intend someone’s death to be guilty of murder. Intending serious harm is enough. In this case it’s highly likely that the combination of sadistic and sexual conduct is what led the judge to the whole life order.

I think that it’s the BBC and the judge who are being misinterpreted here.

The judge didn’t have to give a whole life sentence - he could have given Varley the same Sara sharif’s father (poor girl) - life with minimum 40 years. But he went for the whole life sentence because of the utter severity and repugnance of the crime.

As a pp has said much more eloquently than me, the judge has to be seen to be considering all evidence. He acknowledged that Varley began to resent poor Preston. That of course is not an excuse at all (one iota) and the judge made that point.

Except if you listen to the piece the OP has misinterpreted or misheard the report because they don't do what she says.

Classic BBC reporting .... Always on the wrong side !

Same as you can still be a policeman like Wayne Couzens.

So he should be given a whole life sentence, and so should the other one They were in in together. He could have stopped it at any time.

@lyarlyarpantsonfire

If the coverage you were talking about was the Radio 4 World at One programme, then having listened to it, you are being very unreasonable to say that the BBC is misrepresenting the killer. Through the top of the hour headline and summary, then the main piece, the reporting puts the sexual abuse element of the story front and centre.

There is a live report in the middle from a reporter standing outside the court where he has just got out of the court and he's reading from his notes summarising the judges remarks where he mentions that the judge commented on the line about parenting being overwhelming but the reporter makes it quite clear that's not an excuse. And then he goes on to say that the public won't hear about the details of the abuse in print or on radio or TV because it's too graphic to repeat. The reporter then says "this is a case of utmost depravity"

So I'm not really hearing what you heard in this report. Unless this isn't the radio programme you were talking about?

The piece in question starts at 6.53 if anyone is interested in hearing for themselves.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xp69