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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that Rachel Manning's mother was poorly advised in her statement to the media?

153 replies

Mintyy · 05/09/2013 13:56

It goes without saying that I have the utmost sympathy for her and everything she has been through. I can only think that her grief has affected her judgement, though Sad.

Most of her statement is devoted to praising the police (who oversaw two terrible miscarriages of justice) and she seems to be complaining about the re-trials she has had to attend. Then she makes a very dubious comment about her dd's boyfriend, and no acknowledgement at all (as far as I could see) that two men spent a considerable amount of time in prison for a crime they did not commit.

As I said, I feel dreadful for this woman. But was it wrong of her to make that comment about Barri White? and not to acknowledge that they were very wronged too?

OP posts:
Snazzyenjoyingsummer · 05/09/2013 16:35

Friday makes an excellent analogy with rape cases - I was thinking this myself this morning. It places blame on the fact that the person was alone, when the blame is entirely with the criminal who choose to rape, or in this case, murder. If he had not attacked Rachel and she had continued on her way, things would have been different - that's the crucial point. It was indeed a very poorly-judged thing to say. I think many people feel sympathetic towards Rachel's mother's grief but not this unfair blaming.

Nerfmother · 05/09/2013 16:36

Lets not expect her to do anything more than breathe and keep living tho, why should we expect her to have empathy for anyone else? If that's what she thinks so what. The boyfriend will have other people looking out for him, and she doesn't owe him anything.
There was another case where a girl was murdered after snogging in the car with her boyfriend who then drove off and left her to walk op the drive alone. I always thought how that could have been different.
The mother and I are of an age when you did get walked home. She only knows what she knows.

Callani · 05/09/2013 16:44

"Lets not expect her to do anything more than breathe and keep living tho" Nerf, I understand the sentiment and I feel nothing but the utmost sympathy for what she has gone through BUT she chose to use her time on air, not just to thank the police, but also to blame her daughter's murder on an innocent man.

I can 100% understand that in her grief she would want to do this, but to me this is cruel.

wannaBe · 05/09/2013 16:52

I blame the media for parading these victims on national television anxiously awaiting a statement so we can all get an idea of how the parents "feel."

it was a terrible miscarriage of justice. But the fact that now the right man has been convicted does not change the fact that a woman was murdered - we don't need to pick over the feelings of the parent over and over again each time a murder case comes into the media spotlight. Losing a child is devastating. We don't need a statement to confirm that.

At the end of the day the media wanted to know how she felt - and she told them. And if I lost a child I can't honestly say I wouldn't be angry if that child (regardless of the fact they were then an adult) had been left to walk home alone and that a different move might have changed that. And if someone asked how I felt I can't hand on heart say I wouldn't say. I hope I wouldn't, but having never been in the situation we can't possibly know.

Here is a woman who lost her daughter, who believed that she had been murdered by her boyfriend, and then, when he was aquitted had no-one left to blame until the correct perpetrator was brought to justice. But people were celebrating his acquittal (and rightly so). And she would have been thinking that he didn't murder her, but he left her to walk home alone, if he hadn't, she would still be alive. And that must be a hard thought to shake off, we all go through "if only" scenarios in our lives, it's just that usually they're not as significant as murder.

The statement was crass, there's no question about that. But the media shouldn't have saught it in the first place.

Original poster
Mintyy · 05/09/2013 16:54

I am sure she could have declined to make a statement if she didn't want to.

OP posts:
wannaBe · 05/09/2013 17:02

but why should she have to? isn't that also a form of victim blaming? she is a victim too, and yet we are judging her for how she as a victim feels, and putting the onus on her to not express those feelings even when being asked.

Original poster
Mintyy · 05/09/2013 17:05

Well, which is it Wannabe - do you blame the media for "parading her" or not?

OP posts:
hackmum · 05/09/2013 17:14

I think it's a feature of human nature that we tend to blame the people who weren't directly responsible. It's like when a baby is killed by its parents, people blame the social workers - and I suppose it's because we think of the social workers as being "good" people like us, and we think we would have done something, whereas the parents are beyond the pale.

Nerfmother · 05/09/2013 17:14

Well I think she is allowed to say what she wants and we should all be adult enough to let her. It's not nice for him to hear that, but it's her chance to tell the world about her and her feelings.

friday16 · 05/09/2013 17:15

"I blame the media for parading these victims on national television"

Quite. People whose relatives have been murdered are living in a place few of us can understand, and none of us would want to visit. It's expecting a lot for them to also be Martin Luther King, filled with eloquence and love.

Every time Denise Fergus appears on the television I think "please, Mr Producer, stop doing this": she has a right to speak, and she has a right to continue to articulate the unimaginable pain she bears, but she is not an expert on penal policy or the philosophy of justice or whatever, she's an innocent victim of an appalling crime. As in this case, the mothers, fathers and other relatives of victims should be listened to, but we should be aware that things said by victims might not be the basis for long-term penal policy. They should be listened to, sympathetically, and we should try to understand their pain. But it's an open question as to how much wisdom there is in what they say.

Mindmaps · 05/09/2013 17:17

Grief is not an opt out from reason or empathy or right and wrong. Her loss as a mother does not trump his loss as a boyfriend and of years of his life and so much of the potential of his future life, implying that it's a generational thing is also not justification.

SubliminalMassaging · 05/09/2013 17:21

I thught what she said was terrible, and while I can understand that she has been under much strian, so have that poor lad's family, and the other friend who was convincted with him. I'm sure she is struggling to come to terms with all this new information and it has dragged up some painful memories, but even so she was totally out of order, very ungracious and showed no compassion or empathy towards what that young man has been through at all. Shame on her.

wannaBe · 05/09/2013 17:29

yes, I blame the media, my position on that didn't change Confused

And who are we to say who she can and cannot blame, yes of course the murderer is to blame for her daughter's death. But in her mind her daughter walked home alone because her boyfriend let her walk off. If that hadn't happened then she might still be alive. It's possibly misplaced blame, but her feelings aren't irrelevant just because others don't agree. And she shouldn't be expected to stop blaming just because he too was a victim.

Often we do blame others for things which they are not directly responsible for. As someone said above, if a parent murders their child we blame the authorities, ss, the teachers, those who should have seen something and didn't. They are not to blame for the child's death - the parents are. But in retrospect there will have been opportunities for them to stop it happening, and so it is easy to say "what the hell were they thinking...." if you are the direct victim then it's a much smaller leap from the outburst of blame to retaining it.

I feel desperately sorry for Barry White because he did no wrong, and no, of course he wasn't to blame. But equally neither is Rachel Manning's mother for holding that view.

If people don't want to know how victims feel, how they truly feel, then they shouldn't ask questions they're not prepared to hear the answers to.

josiejay · 05/09/2013 17:38

I wonder if on some level she still believes Barry White did it? I mean even though she knows he didn't...because she has hated him all these years, gone over and over what she believed to be true in her grief stricken mind, to the extent that it's become imprinted in her consciousness. So even though logically she knows it wasn't his fault she has transferred her anger from him killing Rachel to him letting her walk home. Because the enormity of the tragedy is so overwhelming that she just doesn't have space to feel sorry for him.

I don't think anyone should condemn her for whatever her feelings are. It's just utterly tragic all round.

Lovecat · 05/09/2013 17:38

Hmm. Not sure. While I feel desperately sorry for Barri White and Keith Hyatt and I do think that her words smack of victim blaming, I do understand (whilst not condoning) Rachel's mother's statement. I don't think she's in a place to be 'gracious' or show compassion or empathy - it's all been raked up again for her and it must be very, very raw.

Thankfully no-one shoved a microphone in my Dad's face when my 19 yr old brother was murdered 20 years ago, but if they had he'd have made a statement blaming my brother's friends for not going with him when he was thrown out of a nightclub for being drunk, whereupon the bouncer beat him up, robbed him and threw him into the docks to drown before skipping the country.

It wouldn't have been right, it wouldn't have been fair, but he was hurting so much that he needed to find someone to blame for his death in the absence of the actual killer. I don't think anyone has the right to judge this woman in her grief and saying 'shame on her' is just... well, lacking in empathy?

Original poster
Mintyy · 05/09/2013 17:39

Wannabe
Sorry, I don't really want to be a nit-picker, but first you said you blame the media for "parading her". But your response to my suggestion that she did not have to make a public statement if she did not want to was "why should she keep quiet?" so I think those two statements are contradictory.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mintyy · 05/09/2013 17:41

Oh God, what a horrific experience for your family Lovecat!

OP posts:
Lovecat · 05/09/2013 17:54

It was pretty awful, Mintyy. I just remember my Dad trying to ban his best friend from the funeral, he blamed him so much :( I felt really sorry for him and his other friends, they were all only 19 and on a night out, they weren't to know.

thegreylady · 05/09/2013 17:56

OP I absolutely agree with you.Dh and I were shocked when we heard it last night.She apparently called Barrie White for help and he went to pick her up and she was gone.He deserves an abject apology.

SubliminalMassaging · 05/09/2013 17:59

No they weren't Lovecat, and your Dad's reaction may have been understandable given that it was still so raw and so little time had passed. this woman is hardly in the same situation, and even if she harbours a grudge towards Barry White for supposedly abandoning her daughter surely she can see that he has paid a heavy price for that a thousand times over.

Changingnames32 · 05/09/2013 18:05

test

wannaBe · 05/09/2013 18:08

mintyy what I meant was why should she be the one to decline to give a statement - she shouldn't be being approached for it in the first place, iyswim. so yes - I blame the media for jumping on victims to express their feelings time and time and time again, for dragging the victims of these brutal crimes all over the news when actually it serves no purpose what so ever.

Lovecat I am so sorry for your loss. Sad

sm who are we to say though what is and isn't an appropriate timescale to express those feelings. grief affects different people differently, and I imagine that every time she gets paraded into the media spotlight it must bring it all back again as if it were yesterday. it's not for any of us to say that "it's ok to express those feelings at the time but not afterward,"

Changingnames32 · 05/09/2013 18:09

Name changed for obvious reasons. I know Rachel's mum and she is absolutely lovely but has been through sheer and utter hell since the day her daughter went missing.

She was just desperate to trying to find justice and has had to endure several awful, detailed trials first with Barri and Keith and now this one, which was also a retrial after the first jury couldn't reach a verdict.

I think she is allowed to state her feelings and if the strength of her feelings upset some people then tough shit, basically.

MrsAMerrick · 05/09/2013 18:21

YANBU, op. She may think those things but they are very unreasonable. I can't even begin to imagine what the family of Rachel Manning have been through, but to continue to blame the boyfriend for the murder (which is effectively hat she is doing) is just wrong. Several people have commented on the fact that she probably has harboured so much hatred towards him, believing him to be the actual murderer for so long, that she can't let that go. I really hope she gets the support she needs, and I also hope that Barri White is able to rebuild his life.

Cityofgold · 05/09/2013 18:26

Changing names32 - understand your position, but she is very publicly blaming Barri White for her daughter's death. As the OP question suggests she has been poorly advised in this regard. I do not judge that her grief gives her the right to lay blame on Barri White's door. The perpetrator is to blame, no one else.
He has served six years in prison for showing poor judgement at the end of a, no doubt drunken, night out. There but for the grace of god go many of us I would suggest.