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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

148 replies

HorribleMotherCo · 15/10/2015 13:45

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?

OP posts:

slightlyglitterpaned · 15/10/2015 21:51

To be honest I'm not sure why any of the papers would be selling more at the moment, when they seem to be putting it all on the front, who needs to buy it?

Booyaka · 15/10/2015 21:52

Gloria, that completely ignores the fact that the language barristers use and how they phrase what they're saying has a huge impact on the trial. In all likelihood that was probably a pretty close version of what the prosecution said.

Egosumquisum · 15/10/2015 21:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Booyaka · 15/10/2015 22:01

Disappointed, in criminal trials journalists are already heavily constrained in what they can and can't report which points down to basically only what is submitted as evidence and what happens in the court. And images the police choose to release which relate to the crimes. So there are constraints, but they're based on the interests of justice, not what a few pearl clutchers deem distasteful and therefore think should be hidden.

Nobody is arguing that there should be no reporting restrictions or pictures of the body, they're saying decisions on what the public can and can't know shouldn't be constrained on taste grounds.

The only cases where this doesn't apply is to graphically blow by blow sexual accounts so it doesn't basically turn into extreme porn. So for example exactly what Ian Watkins did wasn't reported, but the judge explained it graphically and it's publicly available in the court documents.

Egosumquisum · 15/10/2015 22:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Booyaka · 15/10/2015 22:07

If the papers want to report that and feel it is in the public interest them yes, they should be able to report absolutely everything which is said in court bar things they're not legally allowed to print.

We all have a legal right (barring fees) to access Crown Court transcripts so it's all publicly available anyway.

They do self censor over certain incredibly offensive things. But they shouldn't be obliged to. And the shouldn't be put under pressure to sanitise trials and make them unemotive when that would involve creating a misleading impression of how a trial is progressing.

Egosumquisum · 15/10/2015 22:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Booyaka · 15/10/2015 22:14

There are more gruesome details in this case because it was a particularly gruesome murder. It's that simple. It's outside the 'everyday' stabbings and shootings. Plus the accused are a family member and a woman, which are both very unusual in this kind of case. It's an exceptional, unusual case. It's also a young girl and the type of 'every parents nightmare' type scenario that people are interested in.

Ubik1 · 15/10/2015 22:20

I don't think positioning a critical view of the coverage as 'pearl clutching' is accurate - although it is an effective way of winning an argument online.

What has struck me about this case, is the abundance of images on offer to the media while proceedings are active.

Booyaka · 15/10/2015 22:22

Even if it sells papers, accurate reporting of trials is still in the public interest.

Ubik1 · 15/10/2015 22:27

I'm not doubting the accuracy, the interests of justice nor the noble desire of the humble journalist to diligently report every detail.

But there are ways of reporting and the way this trial is being reported is salacious. It is.

Booyaka · 15/10/2015 22:28

I don't think criticising it and saying you don't like it is wrong, it's the 'It shouldn't be allowed' tone of this thread, and the fact that some people seem to think trials should be inaccurately reported (eg not reporting a barristers emotive language) on the grounds of taste.

Some people are talking rubbish on here 'It wouldn't be the same if it was an old man'. What about the headline news of that old man who was beaten and robbed? 'Or a young child' - what? Have I imagined all the fuss about James Bulger and Sarah Paynes and April Jones?

slightlyglitterpaned · 15/10/2015 22:28

Ubik - yes, that's surprised me too.

I have to wonder, given that I've been trying to avoid reporting, and haven't - how much are the jury seeing?

Ubik1 · 15/10/2015 22:46

I don't think that is rubbish - i think there is much more detail pushed up into headlines and opening paragraphs alongside the images of the scene/bags etc

Perhaps it's the abundance of published images which has made it seem so much more salacious than other comparable large trials.

etsiketsi · 15/10/2015 22:56

Reporters have a legal protocol to follow which is clear on what they can and cannot report. If its upsetting you, don't read it. Posting on a forum such as this is is inviting prejudiced comment and conjecture from other posters on a case which is being currently heard. This could undermine the entire legal process. YABU

slightlyglitterpaned · 15/10/2015 23:01

Etsi, did you read what I said earlier? I don't and haven't read any of the reporting on this case, yet I have been unable to avoid exposure to significant details of the case.

Telling me "don't read it" for text presented unexpectedly in very large letters - I cannot do that and conduct any sort of normal life.

laughingatweather · 15/10/2015 23:28

It's a high profile case of the murder of an attractive young 'innocent'. And I don't put that in quotation marks as a sarcastic or judgemental opinion of the victim at all but with the knowledge that such cases always cause more public outrage and garner more interest than other murder cases.

The Police and the Courts exercise a huge amount of control over what is allowed to be reported by the press. They have released it and allowed it to be published.

The press is giving the public what a lot of them want. If it didn't sell newspapers or result in hundred of thousands of 'clicks' on-line, then it wouldn't happen.

And the press are reporting evidence given in court so they are relating those pieces of evidence put forward by the prosecution. They're not exaggerating or making it more sensational. They're reporting what is presented.

And it is awful and sickening. But it is what is being presented. It happened. It's horrifying but it happened.

And it's not new. The Fred and Rose West case went into as much detail in the press. As did so many others and we forget in between cases how shocking each one is.

No one in the public 'needed' to know the torture and injuries of 'baby P'. But we were told about every single one.

It's not in my opinion, disrespectful or salacious to print something which is in the public domain. Our judicial system is transparent and that's one of the great things about it, that any member of the public could attend court and/or be entitled to information pertaining to that trial.

squoosh · 15/10/2015 23:30

It's not in my opinion, disrespectful or salacious to print something which is in the public domain.

But obviously details are often reported in a salacious manner.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 15/10/2015 23:46

Telling me "don't read it" for text presented unexpectedly in very large letters - I cannot do that and conduct any sort of normal life.

Agree with this. You would have to avoid most newsagents and sail past the newspaper isle with your eyes on the ceiling.

If others are so desperate to read the forensic details perhaps they are the ones who need to make the most basic effort to find them (ie, buy the newspaper and turn the page).

ThatsDissapointing · 16/10/2015 00:34

Boyaka
I don't think criticising it and saying you don't like it is wrong, it's the 'It shouldn't be allowed' tone of this thread, and the fact that some people seem to think trials should be inaccurately reported (eg not reporting a barristers emotive language) on the grounds of taste.

No one has suggested that trials should be reported 'inaccurately' and I think your interpretation that the tone of this thread is that it shouldn't be allowed is wrong. I think the majority of the posters who disapprove of the newspapers reporting lots of grisly details are just saying that they dislike it and find it distasteful and disrespectful. I can't see that any of the posters who dissaprove have said they want the press to be censored. .

I think the newspapers have it wrong.

BathtimeFunkster · 16/10/2015 00:44

The thread started with this question:

Do the public really need to know the sickening details?

Which rather suggests that "the public" should not be given access to reports of evidence in a trial on the basis that it is "sickening detail".

The answer is that yes, there are very good reasons why those details are public, and that people are entitled to know them.

Court reporting is the reporting of the details of the evidence out before the court. That's all that can be reported.

If you don't want "gruesome" details reported from the trials of gruesome murders, then it's hard to see what kind of reporting you do want.

Egosumquisum · 16/10/2015 07:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HeySoulSister · 16/10/2015 16:12

bathtime I agree with that. Your posts make sense

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