to want to respond to the hang 'em high merchants on social media

[Glitterknickaz]

Yes, it's started already.

Pictures of convicted child sex offenders and nooses pasted alongside a photograph of a man who hasn't even been tried (recent events of the last week).

Apparently this is sufficient to justify a return to the death penalty.

All it makes me want to do is mock up similar using photos of people such as Christopher Jeffries, Colin Stagg... there are many wrongly accused people to choose from.

But actually I know it'll be pointless so I'm just going to have to hide them from my feeds aren't I? head desk

A whole life tariff is already in place for quite a lot of murders.

Huntley isn't actually on the whole life tariff list. He was sentenced to serve a minimum of 40 years.

Yes, sorry, I meant Brady, but got muddled.

Denise no one is trying to rise above it, do you expect us all to have a national day of mourning for a child we did not know?

Other than feeding from and belittling the families grief I don't actually see what this would achieve

There will be cases which genuinely affect individuals emotionally but unfortunately in todays society we see it so often that we have become de-sensitized unless there is some extreme circumstance surrounding i.e Doncaster brothers attacks and cannot express grief for every case.

Why is a highly emotional response more valid or authentic than an analytical one though Denise? And beyond the horrible fact of a child's death we haven't even got any facts to get emotional about. I do actually have an emotional response, but I don't see that as something the wider world needs to know and I'm wary of those who do. Grief is not theatre, nor competition.

YABU. The armchair police always know best. Didn't you know that? They also make fantastic judges and juries, as, again, they know better than the professionals who do it every day.

YABU.

People get upset when missing children turn up dead, and aren't always sensible in their responses.

Have been slightly daft. One of my facebook profiles is totally open, and has the response I reated on it. So if anyone wants to see it, and possibly snaffle it, you should be able to link into here to get it

*created

YANBU I'm ignoring them. I have my opinions but none as strong as these. Especiially not for a person who is still innocent in the eyes of the law. I'll reserve my judgement for when/if he is convicted.

peoplesprincess... So, if one of your relatives - or somebody you cared about - was being pilloried and tried by the 'press' and a clueless public, you'd shrug it off as something that happens because people aren't always sensible in their responses, would you?

Your post represents what is very sad and lacking about fairness and justice today.

Grief is not theatre, nor competition.

This^^

YANBU. Considering deleting the people who have posted it on my FB.

However the one that really got my goat was the one with the picture of the theater shooter in Colorado and the caption: If I was Arab I'd be a terrorist, if I was black I'd be a thug, but I'm white so I'm mentally ill"

I did delete friends over that one.

I keep getting thse from a work colleague of mine. However, she is pretty scary in real life and prone to attacking people who disagree with her FB posts- so like a coward I just ignore it

I was more annoyed that it spelt paedophiles incorrectly. FFS the standard of pitchfork wielding mobs has definitely slipped.

i wonder how some people are able to get on with their own life when they are constantly devastated by someone they have never known being murdered has died or had a tradgedy in their family it must be exhausting for them

everyone feels sad about hearing news of a child dying or worse being murdered but not everyone pretends that it has any real impact on their life to do so is disrepectful to those who are really suffering from losing a person they love

thankfully none of my friends are like this and i only have people i am close to on fb

YANBU. Competitive grieving via social networking is vile.

I often wonder why certain cases make the headlines and hundreds of others don't?

What was it about this missing child that made the headlines? Children go missing every single day and not a peep from the local paper, nevermind making the top story on the evening news. Children are murdered every week (approximately one child every week) but only a couple each year make the headlines. Why is this?

I had a couple of ex-FB friends up in arms about the release of a local "murderer", so I just asked them why they weren't up in arms about the "murderers" who had been released the previous week. That shut them up. Then there were a few of those dreadful ill-educated "pedophile" posts so I de-friended them.

I'm becoming quite alarmed at the amount of people baying for the blood of the two people who were bailed. Not even a charge and I'm still reading shit like "of course she knew, kill the bitch"

Truly sick making. Of course if there are guilty verdicts all round then I shall be right on board the wagon of condemnation. But the wagon of pointless blood lust is not one I'm interested in being a passenger on ta very much.

I don't know if anyone remembers a case a while ago about a tiny baby that was hospitalised with horrendous injuries and a man and a woman were arrested and bailed. They were widely assumed to be the parents and there ensued a furore of blood baying similar to that which is occurring now. I stupidly tried to point out several times that no one actually knew whether the injuries were deliberate, who had been arrested or whether they were the actual parents or not. I was roundly accused of sympathising with murderers and actually called a paedophile. At which point I despaired of the human race and resolved to ignore ignore ignore in future.

I never did hear whether those people were charged or not.

How absolutely ridiculous MissPants

I think what AmberLeaf said ^^ is correct.

They did (and still do) this to Maxine Carr, even though she was on the other side of the country at the time, and compare her to Myra Hindley

The same day this latest news broke it was reported that a poor man had killed himself after being subjected to years of threats and abuse from morons who assumed him to be one of James Bulgers killers. It just made what is happening now all the more poignant for me.

I actually knew someone personally who unfortunately shared a name with a known paedophile and was horribly tormented by the local pitchfork wavers. Watching him scrubbing vile words from the front of his house regularly was heartbreaking. He was such a lovely man but he went from being social and outgoing to a reclusive alcoholic due to those horrible years. Ruined his life. These people have no guilt though, they feel justified in their moral outrage so they must be good people right? The innocents they take down with them are just collateral damage in their crusade to be the most pro active in justice seeking.