To feel sorry for this woman?

[Mammanat222]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2781377/BREAKING-NEWS-Internet-troll-targeted-McCanns-dead-hotel-room-days-fleeing-home.html

OK so her hobby of internet trolling (and her subjects!!) was a bit dodgy BUT I cannot help to feel quite sorry for how she was treated??

AIBU

But that is exactly what the media has done Bowlersarm!!!

Both sides want justice for Maddie, but one side passionately believes they are not being told the truth and one side thinks differently. Brenda had also allegedly been putting pressure on the media according to the FB group about alleged peadophiles in Westminster. She was a woman who genuinely believed she was fighting the good fight. This is not what a troll does.

The people who actually knew her describe her a nice, loving woman. She just had different views to your own -doesn't mean she deserved to die.

People are also still missing out on the key point - why was she specifically chosen out of all the people who don't believe the official story? Do we think it's right Sky News turned up on her doorstep, publicly identified her when she didn't have many twitter followers and no-one had heard of her until Sky News turned up? Why they repeatedly put her on Sky News channel every 15 minutes? The coverage was completely excessive and you have to wonder why? Can anyone truly say hand on heart she deserves this?

I think we can argue over the definition of 'troll' but I find it distasteful when that is used in so many of the headlines about the dead woman. It's like when there was that awful series of murders in Ipswich and the media kept referring the victims as 'prostitutes' yes they were working as prostitutes but that it not the totality of their existence. This woman was posting nasty things on forums but it's unfair to define her solely by those actions.

Marmiteandjamislush, I have NOT criticised the McCanns at all (and I wouldn't dream of. ) but am looking at it from Mrs Leyland's point of view (having read her twitter)
It is a fact that the McCanns made a huge mistake, because they say so themselves, and if people dislike them because of it it is sad but understandable.
I think we can be sympathetic to both the McCanns and Mrs Leyland.

I am upset that you made the jibe asking if I am a perfect parent, because there is no need to be personal in a discussion forum.

I think we would all be better off if we stopped trying to be "perfect parents" and aimed for "good enough".
Most of us do the best we can at the time and the children grow up fine despite our mistakes. No need for anybody to judge anybody else.

The media didn't do that plinky. They were investigating a news story.

Her intentions simply can't have been innocent or honourable. If they were she could have used the spotlight she caused herself to be under, to good use. Instead she killed herself. She made herself unanswerable for her actions. And left her son an awful situation which he now has to deal with.

I suspect that Skynews choose her because she made for good TV.

She was so very different what people would normally expect a troll to be, that this was news in itself. She appeared to be a middle class, late middle aged woman who could appreciate the difference between how to behave and how not to behave, rather than some knuckle-dragging outcast from society.

Its shocking that she died in this way, and terrible for her family. Its also shocking that she should have felt suicidal. However, finding yourself suddenly famous/ infamous has happened to many.

The McCanns are another example of people who find themselves suddenly famous for bad reasons, but yet people who do not know them did not feel enough pity, respect nor decency to leave them alone.Iin fact, some people who only know what they read in the press choose to go online and post things calling on them to suffer “for the rest of their miserable lives”.

Bowlersarm, I think perhaps Mrs Leyland wasn't very well, and being thrust into the media is difficult for anybody but must be horrific when the media has given a false impression of you.

Bowlersarm - There was no news story though! None of those people in the dossier had been charged with any crime whatsoever. No actions had been taken by the police as yet. They had no right to undercover her online identity, no right to identify where she lived and turn up at her doorstep. Do you honestly think that is acceptable? Do you it would be OK for Sky News to turn up at your doorstep and identify you on national TV about your views on Mumsnet, and then run the story every 15 minutes? It is the police's role to investigate any crimes - it is certainly not Sky New's job to identify people.

RE: Killing herself - according to online reports Brenda felt her life was in danger because of her views. Maybe she felt she had no choice. Have they confirmed that it was definitely suicide? To be honest, the vast majority of us would not consider killing ourselves unless we felt there was absolutely no way out of it. The Sky News coverage only really calmed down after she killed herself.

var123 - that's simply not true though - there are plenty of white, stereotypically middle class people who post comments that don't fit with the official story. These people are incorrectly labelled as trolls. They are, like everyone, trying to get justice for Maddie. Brenda was just one of many thousands who hold that view and who believe that are being silenced. She had so few twitter followers, she never contacted the McCann's directly and the McCann's had never even heard of her until Sky News brought it up. The whole situation makes no sense whatsoever - I can see no justification for Sky News actions whatsoever.

A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said: "Police were called at 13:42 on Saturday 4 October to reports of a body of a woman in a hotel room in Smith Way, Grove Park [in Leicester].

"Officers have attended the scene and a file is being prepared for the coroner. The death is not being treated as suspicious."

I think this means that the person either died of natural causes or it was suicide.

It was a news story.
the fact it was covered by a news channel and followed up by just about every national newspaper MAKES it a news story.

I find it totally disturbing how manic people get over something they really know nothing about, I know they claim to
I would hate it if my DD became public property
Why do they become so obsessed? Its another downside of the internet, and that they claim to be working for the poor girl, who they have never met nor know anything about, I just find freaky

And I mean both sides. Real peoples lives have become like a soap opera for a bunch of disturbed folk

How exactly do you get "justice for Maddie" by posting online poring over every word about the case trying to find discrepancies?

Also I think her parents preferred to call her Madeleine. Wouldn't it be more respectful to the parents and the child herself to use her real name, not the one the press made up?

I know someone whose 14 yr old child committed suicide after being relentlessly cyber bullied by faceless bullies who hid behind the anonymity of the Internet. I don't have any sympathy with this woman at all, maybe people like her need to be named and shamed as a a deterrent to other "keyboard warriors" out there as the official channels don't seem to deter them. Don't dish out what you can't take in return.

I wonder if you'd feel sorry for her if it had been your family targeted?

What she did was vile & what she'd written was vile.

She clearly never thought she'd be 'caught' but she shouldn't have done what she did otherwise she'd have never been outed. I'm sorry, but you reap what you sow.

It's her family I feel sorry for, her children must be devastated

What she did was horrible, but for sky news to get to her before the police did was very wrong.

I don't know a lot about how the police handle the media when it comes to this, but I suspect the police do have a system to protect people who have been aquised of hate crimes.

What she did was horrible, but for sky news to get to her before the police did was very wrong.

I don't know a lot about how the police handle the media when it comes to this, but I suspect the police do have a system to protect people who have been aquised of hate crimes.

I hope that this case is looked at as a deterrent.

You WILL be found and there ARE consequences when you are. The press will find out, your picture will be splashed over the media.

This women had a choice, she chose to target the Mccanns time and time again, she was found out and took the cowards way out leaving her family to pick up the pieces. Shame on her but perhaps those thinking of doing something like this will think again.

If she had been quietly spoken to by the police would she have learnt, would others?

It looks like lots of people are still under the impression that she said/wrote things that other people were responsible for.

The stuff she DID say was bad enough, plus she re-tweeted some nasty things as well.

She didn't 'target' the McCanns though, she wrote about them, not to them.

Others said far far worse things, yet it was her that was doorstepped by skynews.

oh that's alright then.

So you've never written something about someone then Nancy?

Never expressed an opinion online about someone?