White woman missing syndrome - Serena Beakhurst missing since 15th Dec

[DuelingFanjo]

has anyone heard about missing Serena Beakhurst ? story here

missing since 15th December yet very little coverage.

white woman missing syndrome

God, that's just the sort of thing you'd hope wasn't the case but what else are you supposed to think?

Where are her parents appealing on tv?

I sincerely hope there's good reasons we haven't heard about this. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

There was some coverage,though brief,on the 1pm news.

saw it on the BBC site and wondering why such a young girl being missing warranted so little attention

Hundreds of people go missing all the time, and happily most of them turn up.

The media only report on those with a suspicious angle, or, sadly, those which the police think are beginning to look like murder.

Seriously, if you wanted every missing person reported in the news you'd need an entire 24-hour channel devoted to them.

About 750 people go missing every day in the UK (www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-missing-each-year-275000-britons-disappear-1801010.html).

The unusual event isn't when we don't see coverage of another family missing someone but, unfortunately, when we do.

Her family might have been trying very hard to get some attention for this, but when you're one of 750 families a day torn apart by this it's hard to be noticed.

LeninGrad - my dh works in Law Enforcement and would agree with you. When I said there was a reason for not putting pics of my dd's on FB (when we were overseas and in a more vulnerable position than we are here) a lot of people thought I was over the top. But when you hear what really goes on, I think it makes you a lot more cautious.

This is getting some publicity now. The police must have initially thought there was no major reason to be suspicious here

"Two missing people a day is not a lot to publicise really."

It's not a lot compared to the 750 that go missing every day.

"Starting by having a national alert system I think."

The numbers will soon flood such a system, 1 person every two minutes, 750 each day, 275000 every year. How much of a national alert can be raised when faced with such numbers?

It's the sort of volume that people would tragically stop paying attention to it.

"We could prioritise, I think a 14 year old should go on a national alert."

"Most" of the missing are described as being children, so that's at least 375 every day. And that's still too high for a national alert system, people just wouldn't pay any attention to it as it's far too many to deal with.

Fortunately most of the missing children are found after a few days. And maybe that's what the police have decided in this case, that sufficient time has passed that they need to escalate this.

It's an awful set of decisions to make. If they raise the alarm too early then people just won't be able to cope with the numbers (and also possibly might dismiss the alarms as a lot of them will eventually be found or will return). If they raise the alarm too late the child is in danger and might never be found.

Meanwhile the families will be clamouring for attention but they're one of 750 families every day at least half of whom will be missing children.

Awful.

Just awful.

The other case is getting a ridiculously disproportionate amount of coverage which proves the syndrome exists.

Pictures of the woman at school? Really? This is going to help catch her killer?

Meanwhile this and many other women disappear without so much as a sniff from the press.

she has been found which surely is good news

but was it as a result of extra publicity?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1115527-Missing-Teenager-Serena-Beakhurst

@TwoIfBySea 'Syndrome'? The police in Bristol have got a live, recent murder case on their hands where a young woman appears to have been abducted from inside her own home and strangled. Other women in the area could be at risk of dying if the murderer isn't found soon. I'd say that was worth all the publicity..... or are you quite blase about killers being on the loose?

DF, why didn't you search on Mumsnet to see of anyone had heard or discussed the case?
Before starting a new thread?

Goblinchild, really? You think everyone searches for every item they may want to post about before they post? Or maybe DF didn't want to post in AIBU?

Giddy pickle I think you will find in massy McCann was a black girl from a working class family their would of been 0.1% coverage it's amazing what being blond and blue eyed can do for an appeal

My daughter's parents are 'estranged' so that's awful to think that that makes a girl's disappearance less .... tragic or newsworthy somehow.

Chil, before she was found it was all about her missing and this pizza etc.

Of the other girl I know nothing, no cctv of her in a selection of shops before she disappeared (all shown before the body was found), no heartfelt plea from family...actually, even sadder, does she have family? No idea.

And there are plenty others who go missing, end up killed and no one seems to give a damn.

Surely the police look at a case before deciding if it needs publicity or not. In the case of Joanna Yeats, they must have been able to tell early on that she had been abducted and was in grave danger, so they publicised it. And a few days later, her dead body turned up.

I don't think it's fair to say that she only got publicicty because she was white and well educated. She got publicity because the police knew somehow that she was going to be, or had been murdered.

If the figure of 750 people a day going missing is correct, it's safe to assume that the majority of them aren't being abducted and murdered. Otherwise we would all come across a dead body at some point in our lives.

In Serena Beakhursts case, the police probably have good reason to believe that she has not been abducted and murdered, hence it hasn't had much publicity.

It's that simple really.

The problem is, the next time Serena disappears, the police will be even less likely to pour all available resources into finding her.