Becky Watts - to think the media coverage of her murder trial is disgusting and disrespectful.

[HorribleMotherCo]

Every day for the last few days there have been sickening headlines about what was done to her body.

Do the public really need to know the sickening details?

It must be extremely traumatising, not only for family members who have chosen not to sit in court, but also for school friends who knew her.

I also find it extremely disrespectful to her memory to have the gory details of what happened to her body to be plastered all over the papers.

Have they no decency?

I thought the same thing. It's morbid and what they did to that sweet girl is sickening and evil. I've seen more reporting like this recently. How are they allowed to go into so much detail?

YANBU

Of course it all needs to be gone over in court and recorded but it doesn't need to be ghoulishly regurgitated in the media.

Court reporting takes place to accurately report the facts as presented by both the prosecution and defence counsels in court - it is an essential part of our judicial process and ensures that justice is seen to be done. Commenting on a forum about an on-going case is sub judice and could halt the trial - I would tread very carefully.

I'm not reading any of it. The way some elements of the media slavers over particularly gruesome details of a murder is just vile.

There was a very high profile murder case in Ireland recently where the press got into faux outraged ecstasies over the more seedy and disturbing elements of the case. There was even a book being published a mere week after the verdict!

But there will always be some ghouls who'll devour all these details and claim that it's all in the public interest.

You don't have to read it. That sounds flippant, but I don't have tabloid newspapers in the house for that and many other reasons.

Yes, but do the papers need all to report all the details? With pictures?

Of course not, it's disgusting. There is no need to broadcast details that would be distressing to family and friends other than for base, gratuitous reasons.

I was going to make a similar observation to you, squoosh. We may be thinking of a case where the victim's personal struggles were reported on the news in a manner which was probably distressing for the family and certainly would have humiliated the victim had that person been alive.

Yes I agree. It's gone on for a long time, with many other cases unfortunately. I've always thought that.

Our media is becoming more and more sensationalist every day. I turned off the TV the other night when there was a 'trailer' for the news on ITV that ran with "Malaysian Airliner Crash report - victims were alive after the missile hit....'

Disgusting, morbid and immensely cruel to the families.

Tabloid papers will dredge the depths of any subject in an attempt to have the most sickening headline.

I don't know why people still buy them. Half of it is made up anyway (not talking about this case, of which I know nothing)

I judge people harshly for buying this shite. Don't buy it, don't give them money.

That's the one abbie. The media were like vultures picking over the remains of that poor woman's life.

Mrs C - this is why ITV is sometimes worse than the BBC. It's paid for by advertising so they feel it's important to be as sensationalist as possible to get the most hits.

Avoid channels and papers that behave like this. Millions of people buy these papers. Why?

Buy a Guardian instead. Still a paper but so much less hideous in terms of moral behaviour.

I was looking to see if anyone was talking about this.

Was in a cafe on my own after school yesterday where the table of teens next to me were looking it up online and playing what looked like the suspect interviews. The amount of information and descriptions they were accessing seemed beyond anything that's happened before. I don't normally follow these things but is it normal to release police interviews etc?

To be fair to the teens they were subdued and horrified.

there's even tmi on r4 to my mind

there is absolutely NO NEED

just awful.

I agree with you OP.

If they want to report the details they could say in the headline "details released of x,y,z" then you have a choice to read beyond that. But the press put it all the details in the headline.

It's horrific and I can't begin to imagine what any of the poor victims family, friends, teachers neighbours etcetcetc must feel when they see this stuff

YANBU. There's no need for these details to be published in the paper. It's not at all in the public interest. Saying that she'd been dismembered is about the level of detail that should be included. Nobody needs to know the specifics.

I feel sorry for family members of hers who may not have wanted to know these specifics. There's absolutely no way for them to avoid the details.

pasta 'Commenting on a forum about an on-going case is sub judice and could halt the trial - I would tread very carefully.'

I was not commenting on the case as such but the reporting of it .

It is sensationalist and unnecessary. This was a CHILD FFS! Not too long ago that there would be reporting restrictions on details like this.

I agree. I haven't read anything, the headlines are enough to out anyone off. So disrespectful.
I'm sick also of papers online or on FB giving a warning about the content but having a horrific picture on view whether you click the link or not.

Has there been a change in what the media are allowed to report from the courts or is this driven by the media themselves?

I agree. Absolutely no need for us to see images of where the horrors took place.

'unaffected pearl clutchers'

Fuck off with your pearl clutching shit.

I am interested in the news, but feel any crime where there is a likelihood that the motive was (at least partly) sexual gets move coverage than other crimes. Fwiw I don't buy into the brainwashed girlfriend theory and didn't with Hindley either, but I'm sure the press will push this. Briefed or not its got to be like a living nightmare for the family.

I rarely buy newspapers and no longer use fb because of this issue.