Darren Rigby case: salient details left out of reporting

The original version of the article did not mention that Rigby was a transwoman or that they had threatened 4 girls schools because they were TERFs who needed to be taught a lesson. The only hoax part was that they didn't actually have the weapons they claimed. Rigby claimed a trans identity and there is no evidence this was part of the hoax. The threats were taken very seriously and the Rigby is getting a custodial sentence. After complaints were made about the accuracy of the article, the BBC updated it to include the relevant details and added an apology/explanation at the bottom - if you read that part you will understand better how the reporting came to be problematic.

Exactly the trans thing could be a red herring (although I believe it to be true)

The fact is, he's getting a kick out of frightening female children. Not male children

I dont really read the news in detail, I just see the odd headline pop up on my work computer and when this came up it was couched in terms of a hoaxer making threats in the name of transwomen.

So I dont know why its said that isnt clear in the reporting generally.

But no-one would go to all the trouble of pretending to be trans just to attack women and girls!

Nick Wallis in the Times, not sure if this has been shared somewhere else already:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/1d940dfa-bb62-4af5-90fe-49756bb0b269?shareToken=c41806f55ff2f41b84ad498f3938cbe9&ver=article

That's altogether too deep, I feel.

Easier to claim that evil terfs are doing this to give nice trans people a bad name, and ignore the fact that the crimes they commit to do it may carry a prison term (as this one did). However, I think claiming Darren Rigby is a terf in disguise might be a stretch too far even for Zoonosis, who doesn't seem to be among the brightest and best.

It's odd isn't it.

You'd think if bad actors were impersonating trans people to cause division, TRAs would want that well publicised, firstly to exonerate trans people, and secondly as evidence that the trans community are being made a scapegoat by culture war bad faith factions.

And going to prison because they make very amateurishly-covered-up death threats against women and girls? Gosh, the dedication. It's like the claims that JK Rowling spends her entire life trying to destroy trans people (when does she find time to write her books if that's the case): a straightforward lie.

It might be more plausible if the trans people in question had any actual arguments for anyone to undermine, but they generally don't seem to.

Surely @Zoonosis knows that any malicious threatening communication towards pupils in a school will always be taken very seriously?

I think Zoonosis has forgotten that anyone who says s/he is trans is trans; no debate. Anyone who asserts that someone who claims to be trans is not trans, is a transphobic bigot.

We know now where Zoonosis stands, don't we.

Oh so that makes it all okay then?

Tim Burke seems to be accepting that the blame/responsibility for this poor reporting lies with the organisation of which he is a part.

This may be a first for the BBC.

Is Tim Burke blaming the Police because they omitted these details from their press release? Unfortunately that's believable. The Police have published lots of wank where obvious men have been called women.

I don't know, but I hope get rid of the guilty party somehow.

In this case it looks as if it was not a reporter, but a copy-writer or whatever those are now called: the ones who copy-and-paste press releases and slap a headline onto them.

Trying to be fair, the press releases will have been issued before the court case had happened, so that might be how it came about.

So, what do they do when a reporter creates a misleading story by omitting to report salient details?

The explanation in the letter from Tim Burke is

"The omission of this information from the original version was a reporting failure. It arose because the relevant material heard in court was not incorporated into the first published version of the story, which was written from a police press release and a court check. Once that became clear, after an unacceptable delay, the article was corrected and expanded."

I would read that as saying, in effect, "trans ally saw notes from court, realised that they showed that a nasty bit of work was trans, and quietly failed to use them". It was the people at HQ rather than the reporters in court who were sucking up to the trans, going by that.

That prison sentence seems very lenient for the terror he inflicted on those schools and staff.

Very pleased to see the updated article. I find the excuse given about a miscommunication extremely odd. What planet were the bbc court reporters on to leave out so much of the vital details? I wonder if the BBC is finally going to get it's act together re impartiality? A 10billion dollar law suit hanging over them, you'd think they would!

This may be the first time I've seen the BBC mention gender ideology without scare quotes, other than when directly quoting 'transphobes'.

Well that is a first. Was expecting a boilerplate reply.

From the updated article:

'On 23 January, he sent a message to Greenbank, saying he on his way "to the school with a revolver and machete".
He said he was "going to shoot and stab all of your girls", adding that "you TERFS" [an acronym of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist which has been used as a derogatory term against women opposed to gender ideology] were "going to learn to stop mocking and misgendering transwomen like me".
He also said if anyone attempted to stop him, he would kill them and release poison into the school.'

Updating - BBC apologise for the failures in reporting:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0e20ll9gz2o

Update 17 June: This article was originally published without including key details about this case, due to miscommunication between BBC reporters in court and the writers. We have updated the article to explain that these threats were directed at three all-girls' schools, related to the "misgendering" of trans girls and that Darren Rigby identified in one threat as a trans woman.
We have also included further details from these communications which referred to TERFs, targeting female pupils and staff and included threats to use bladed weapons, a crossbow, a revolver, and poison.
Separately, we have also added reaction from senior leaders at all three schools, in which they explain the fear, disruption and upset caused by these threats to pupils, parents and staff.
We have also included comments from Recorder Eric Lamb during sentencing that despite Rigby's guilty plea at the earliest opportunity, this was a "planned and sophisticated plot" which included measures to make him harder to trace, and the Recorder's references to defence submissions which included Rigby's heavy use of cannabis and alcohol, immaturity, previous convictions and refusals to provide medical information for two psychiatric reports.
We apologise for the failures in our reporting.

I’ve complained to the BBC about this - talk about invisible women?!

Transphobe!

Anyone who says they are trans are trans. You don’t get to decide! Why are you not affirming this TW’s identity? Why are you not complaining to the BBC about misgendering?

FAFO

Janice Turner in the Times also mentions Darren Rigby and Bash Back in the context of Prevent.

www.thetimes.com/article/d4878384-ddf3-4e0a-9415-0f71160c3fc0?shareToken=a3f5d9505b6105b6c0348a7fbafd00ed&ver=article