Trial by media circus

[Maatandosiris]

The first thing to say is anyone who has committed rape absolutely needs to be brought to justice. The criminal
justice system needs to become more effective in protecting all victims of crime.

However, AIBU unreasonable to think that this weekends story about RB has been sinister for many other reasons, none of which are to do with RB.

Firstly the SM posts whipping people into a frenzy of some big reveal like some secret album release. Clues planted through various carefully placed posts, giving just enough detail to let people work things out (plus making people suggest other names) . It was an absolute circus, in the case of rape it turned accusations of serious crime into entertainment, no thought how anyone would be affected, whether ultimately guilty or innocent (maybe c4/The Times were trying to get new stories). Extremely bad taste at one end of the spectrum, devastating for innocent people at the other.

The ultimate agenda of both The Sunday Times and C4 is to make money. That’s it, neither is set up as the states arm of justice. There’s no inbuilt checks and balances. Yet somehow they are allowed to name an individual, accuse them of crimes (and effectively say they are guilty) without any of the safeguards and checks and balances of the criminal justice system applying.

People have lost all sense of justice. We have a man accused of something, an hour and a half of heavily hyped TV which holds some accusations but mainly a character assassination, The Sunday Times probably selling many more copies/getting many more subscribers with more of the sane one sided accusations.

Even on Mumsnet we have people already calling him a Rapist, people feeding into the frenzy of “he’s a creep”, “he’s a sex pest” etc etc. in other words, convicting him in their minds before this has gone anywhere near a court or jury.

How will this ever now be a fair trial? How will they find a jury who can 100% not have their views affected by this whole circus? If he is guilty will there ever be a safe conviction, how can we be confident that real justice has been done? What’s the risk of any conviction being overturned? This is not in the interests of either the alleged victim or the alleged perpetrator.

Questions are circulating all over SM as to the agendas at play. It’s fairly clear that the Sunday Times has been searching out victims. What were they saying to these people? What promises have been made?

if a crime has been committed this should be with the criminal justice system not Saturday night prime time TV with an associated heavy advertising campaign.

Im not sure whether RB is guilty or innocent, but that’s not what this post is about. AIBU to think that the way this witch hunt (which is what it is regardless of whether RB sinks or floats) is abhorrent and flies in the face of justice and that this has far wider and scarier implications for society than just this case. Who or what is next?

Come to think of it, I do remember when Russell Brand was talking about Big Pharma, he did then bring on a cancer survivor to talk about how he’s only here thanks to the drugs that saved his life. Then they went to a video link of a children’s ward to discuss the treatment they were getting. It was very balanced.

I don’t have much of an opinion at all on Flack. Ultimately, and I think this is the point you’re driving at, her decision to take her life was her own. I have never and will never hold anyone else responsible for the decision of someone else to take their own life. She was responsible for the choices that led to her police charges and she was responsible for the choices that led to her death.

You seem to be indicating we can do away with trials and just do a vox pop on a persons guilt

No, but I do think that public opinion carries weight in society. It’s what makes society. I don’t always like it, but opinion is what shapes us. Certainly in this case, widespread condemnation of RB’s behaviour is a good thing. Ultimately RB himself is almost irrelevant - the behaviours he made a career out of are harmful to women. In the long run this also influences juries.

From a legal perspective we need a serious debate and focus on how to deal with word vs word cases. I don’t envy the CPS and they’re in a difficult position but I don’t believe it’s beyond the wit of man to find a solution or at least better than we have now.

Anna, the 16 yr old, is on woman's hour today.

She would like the law to be changed around teen relationships with adults

I just watched a couple of YouTube videos regarding the text messages, claiming that they're fake/doctored /manipulated . Now I'm sitting here wondering if I am falling for the crazies online or are these finds real.

This definitely needs to be looked at it is clear from this case that once you get into moral questions there are splits in opinion. There needs to be clear legal rules about what is allowable consent and what isn’t. My view is that the age of consent should be raised to 18. I know many will disagree but at least it is clear when a person is deemed to be an adult and capable of adult decisions. No ambiguity. If you are still at school you are still a child in my book.

There will never be a trial.

He has massive, massive support behind him by low IQ knuckle draggers, conspiracy theorists and good ol misogynists.

This has not hurt him one little jot.

Stupid people are only outshone by their arrogance.

Do you really think the dozens of professional journalists, investigators and lawyers are not going to check every single tiny detail? They HAVE to otherwise he could sue the shit out of them. Notice how he hasn't threatened that yet? But yes, some prick on YouTube absolutely knows better.

how about you break it down and think about it logically.

Do you think Dispatches / Times would use text messages in their output if they hadn’t checked them?

Do you think their lawyers would let them fake evidence?

Do you think they would want to fake evidence, risking their careers and the reputation of 2 enormous media organisations?

if they did want to fake them - to what end? Is it to discredit RB because he is ‘speaking truth to power’? Is it the same as Andrew Tate or Trump? Fake news to bring them down because they are too close to uncovering the truth?

So how could they have checked the messages? Perhaps taking the phone to a technical investigator who could look into the back end and see if there had been any hint of doctoring in the code?

Now, the people on line.

Have they had access to the phone? Or to the code that relates to the receipt, sending and storage of the messages?

If they have, what did they find within the code to suggest doctoring?

Can they share that with the public?

When they do share the smoking gun, can the same smoking gun be found on the original phone by an independent tech investigator?

If, upon asking all of these questions, the words ‘conspiracy’, ‘cover up’ or the acronym ‘MSM’ is used, it’s probably safe to assume they are indeed online crazies.

He had a huge Ego while doing Big Brothers Big Mouth. Slept with 100s around that time.

I knew someone about 20 at the time, went back to house in London, he put a video on of himself on TV... wasn't impressed with his body lol then he called her a taxi.
Anything could have happened. I was surprised as was into all the celebs and obsessed with Big Brother back then.

I 100% agree that the way the justice system deals with tape (and some other types of cases) needs to be seriously addressed. It currently isn’t fit for purpose.

What I don’t agree with is that society can judge a person in the way which is happening. We can say certain types of behaviour are not acceptable, if we have experience of a person acting on a certain way we can say, oh that’s not acceptable to me, I won’t, in this case watch programmes he is on or buy tickets. We can ask questions of whether this behaviour is damaging to society more widely and look at ways we can discourage this.

What we can’t do is take the place of the justice System. Crimes are clearly defined, as are rules regarding evidence and burden of proof. These rules haven’t yet been followed within a system society has agreed upon, it is a system designed to provide the best outcome, although we both agree in needs to be adapted.

Look at the Johnni Depp case.SM and much of the media had him guilty.

What if TRAs start a campaign against a gender critical feminist for violence? we know what way that would go on SM and a BBC investigation.

As I keep saying, this is not about the guilt or not in this specific case, it’s not about whetherRB is a wanker or not. It’s about whether he is guilty of a crime. People have already made up their minds, I would argue a fair trial is now impossible. It’s about whether the media has over stepped the mark here and how people react to positions put forward by the media, this with RB just happens to be a case in point.

In short does the media have too much power and are people increasingly more likely to believe what the see and read in the media.

Re Caroline Flack. I guess the point so was making is that people are saying, if he’s innocent no harm done. Whilst suicide is always a personal choice, I think it’s clearly established that the treatment she received by the media was the trigger.

Sadly that is the world we live in now.

Where the opinions from people with as much understanding of a topic as a slug are given equal, if not more, credence than from those with decades, even a lifetime, of professional experience and knowledge on a topic.

The thing that always blows my mind with the "msm are bad" type of people is just how much faith they put into YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, etc. As if those media channels aren't owned and controlled by some of the biggest corporations on the planet.

Even if they genuinely believed media output is controlled by some shady elite to manipulate the masses and set a narrative, do they genuinely think this elite would allow anti-MSN views to be published freely and easily on global platforms if it wasn't part of their "plan"?

The lack of ability to think things through is very apparent with those types.

Could be said if 100s of celebrities- does it make him a rapist. But your post is interesting. How does it make you feel to know that you’re not alone in your view of him? Justified? It looks like you clearly have a good gut feel for people, you always knew he was like this, even when others were worshipping him.

Listen to woman's hour today. Very pertinent guests. Daisy Goodwin and Anna anon.

"A bbc chauffeur driven car picked up a 16 year old and drove her to Russel Brand's house"

Most worrying of all is that the government seems to have largely shut down the Police and Criminal Justice system because they think it's too costly, so this trial by media is more common now.

from school

Sadly we know that journalists don’t always get things right. That some of their techniques are morally dubious, they lawyers aren’t there to test the guilt of RB they are advising how close to the edge the media can go.

If I was RB I would also be taking my time on the legal side, speaking to lawyers. The journalists took 3 years to pull together their case, RB has had about 1 week since he was first aware (although were not sure how much detail he had). Maybe he’s waiting to speak with the police and ho through the proper channels knowing there’s no evidence and once that’s dealt with he will sue?

This is true - doesn’t make it right though.

But this is the very point. I don’t know how many more times I can spell this out. It’s not about RBS guilt or innocence it’s about trial by media

No. It's about power and power imbalance.

Platform.

Ironically, as I typed that, Emma Barnett mentioned power imbalance

Voice, advocation.

Rotherham wasn't exposed or effectively enacted on till the papers did.

Anna's mum didn't call the police as Anna was legally allowed to be there.

He had huge power.

He had the law and the money.

He had power over her daughter so she felt she had to keep her close or loose her completely.

He had celebrity status.

Just as Jimmy Saville did.