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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Rebecca Flood - The Sun newspaper

81 replies

Begginngletter · 05/03/2019 23:07

Rebecca Flood - you picked up my post yesterday and you put it on your website.

You have taken the worst day of my life and made it 10000 times worse. Before you shared that, I was just about managing in this situation, now I am not.

I have emailed you and I have emailed your editors to beg you to remove it. You have ignored me.

I want to ask you here to please reconsider. Please show some compassion and don’t publicise this awful situation.

I am far from home and wanted to talk to some of my family about what has happened and now cannot, because I know some of them read that paper. They would be horrified that it had appeared there. I now feel completely alone in dealing with this.

Perhaps I was silly to put it on a public forum but I needed immediation help from people who didn’t know my family. Mumsnet always give you the option to remove such posts if you’re uncomfortable and I posted in the knowledge that I could do that somewhere down the line is needed.

You, on the other hand, have taken the worst thing I have ever been through and shared it irreversibly for the world to see.

If anyone is reading this and knows how I could escalate this, please let me know.

I realise this may draw even more attention to said story, but I am desperate for it to be removed before I tell my wider family what’s going on.

OP posts:
ShatnersWig · 06/03/2019 07:55

I sadly doubt she will even notice this. I'm afraid this is such common practice now it is like water off a duck's back. People don't buy newspapers in the numbers they once did so to survive they focus more on the websites and the money they can make with advertising on the website and they are driven by traffic to the website and so they need more clickbait type stories than actual NEWS. You only have to scan the Daily Fail homepage to notice how many of them are actual news stories in the accepted sense of the term. Local newspaper websites are as bad where half the stories they put up aren't even local but it's all clickbait. And they've got rid of journalists as we knew them and farm stuff out to trainees and students and then just tweak the copy. If everyone stopped visiting their sites and only got their news from Channel 4 at 7 pm (now pretty much the only reliable source) they'd have to stop. We all feed them.

Bouchie · 06/03/2019 07:55

It's truely awful and the press are scum. But you can cope. I promise. I was picked up by our local press (and then national) for a court case I was in. It was quite titerlating and my photo went everywhere. I also have quite an unusual name so everyone knew it was me even from years ago. I was found not guilty (because I wasn't guilty!) But the press barely reported that and by then the damage was done. It was awful the shame and pain it caused at the time felt like it would never go away. But that was over a year ago and I have totally got over it. I don't know your situation but if it's not identifiable as you it will drift away and if it is Fuck anybody that judges you. Your real friends will stand by you and no one else matters. Who cares what anyone else thinks anyway.
Be strong. You can get through this Flowers

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 06/03/2019 07:56

Your family must so proud of you, Rebecca Flood.

gamerchick · 06/03/2019 07:57

Making it so there is no space where people can safely and anonymously ask for help with deeply private pain?

See, that's the thing. That isn't how public forums work. People forget they aren't the customer when they're baring their souls on the internet. Once it's out there it doesn't belong to you anymore.

Also, expecting a journalist to have morals?

I'm sorry you're hurting OP, I hope they take it down.

Original poster
Begginngletter · 06/03/2019 08:28

gamerchick that's a lesson learnt from me. I would never ever have written my post if I had known. I was in complete turmoil when I posted yesterday, I had literally no where else to turn.

OP posts:
ShatnersWig · 06/03/2019 08:34

OP I assume you are fairly new to MN as this has been happening quite often now for 2-3 years. Lots of people have had things lifted onto news sites, usually the Daily Fail. I'm sorry this has happened to you.

ShatnersWig · 06/03/2019 08:37

Oh, and there are some journos who don't lift stories but approach you by private message. I had this one yesterday:

Hey there,
I hope you're really well. I saw you posted about sex scheduling a while back on a thread.
I was wondering if I could chat with you about it? I'm working on a piece for the Guardian about it, and looking to find out a bit more about whether it can help restore intimacy to relationships - or if it's a terrible idea. You seem to have had a negative experience with it, which is why I'd especially love to chat with you, as I think it's often seen as a magic bullet by sex therapists etc. Happy to send over links so you can see I am who I say I am!
Please let me know.
Thanks
Sirin

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 06/03/2019 08:47

They shouldn’t be doing this, Shatner.

All press requests must come through MNHQ.

ShatnersWig · 06/03/2019 08:53

@Chardonnays Of course not. But they do.

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 06/03/2019 08:57

I am hoping someone somewhere takes pity as this is basically a time bomb otherwise.

@Begginngletter is there anything you need them to do which is not deleting the article? Changing a detail or anything?

If you're holding out for them to delete it, I wouldn't put too much time into it, I'd focus on damage limitation. Both articles have been cached and repurposed now, and your original thread was cached too, so you stand almost no chance of completely removing this from the internet.

A complaint to IPOS is an excellent idea. Sadly they do have a stock response about not having an unrealistic expectation of privacy once you've posted on the internet, especially where they haven't revealed any details about you that you didn't provide, but complaining is the only way that we might tighten controls around this type of thing.

I'm so sorry that this has made it worse. Does everyone who needs to know already know? It might be better coming from you, if not.

I hope you're holding up okay Thanks

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 06/03/2019 08:58

It’s very intrusive, isn’t it.

SardineQueenII · 06/03/2019 09:03

OP that's awful.

Not heard of Rebecca flood before.

Have now, see she is someone who enjoys profiting from the pain of others.

I really hope they take it down.

diamondofdoom · 06/03/2019 09:25

No idea what the thread was but you'll be okay OP Biscuit hopefully it'll all blow over soon enough

CountessVonBoobs · 06/03/2019 09:51

I don't accept that this kind of thing is inevitable. I accept that putting something on the internet anonymously is a risk, but I do not think we should accept that the cheap rags pick over the space and turn what can be valuable support into freakshow-style entertainment, when all they would have to do is have the morals of a goldfish and... Not do that.

I hope you're enjoying the Google alert you no doubt have set up on your name, Rebecca Flood. You do realise at the centre of that story there is also a woman who's just found out she's the victim of a serious crime? I don't expect journalists to be particularly great citizens, but there's a bit dodgy and there's this.

SardineQueenII · 06/03/2019 09:54

I agree with you Countess.

HelenMummyof2 · 06/03/2019 10:02

Well said Countess

EmmaGrundyForPM · 06/03/2019 10:08

I don't read the Sun but I can make a stab at which thread it was and, if I'm right, it's not just the OP who is affected but one of her family members as well.

Rebecca Flood is a practitioner of cheap journalism, she's presumably just lifted a story from the Net and added her name to it. Any idiot can do the same.

OP it's a very hard lesson to learn but tabloid journalists have been running stories from MN for years. I hardly ever start a thread but if I do and it involves personal information I change a few minor details so it's less likely to be identified with me if it's ever picked up. Eg I've changed the ages and sex of my children, or where we live in the country, which gives some degree of protection.

I really hope you get your personal situation sorted out and that whatever advice you got before your thread was deleted is useful to you going forward.

Also, if the thread is the one I think it is, a crime has possibly been committed, and you and your family need to think about how to proceed with regards to that.

Good luck

ShatnersWig · 06/03/2019 10:38

I don't accept that this kind of thing is inevitable

But how do we stop it Countess?

WatchingFromTheWings · 06/03/2019 10:48

I just googled 'Rebecca Flood' and a list of her Sun articles came up. The article about your situation came up (I read it at the time) then the page instantly refreshed and the article is no longer showing. Have checked twice more and it seems to have vanished??

Original poster
Begginngletter · 06/03/2019 10:51

WatchingFromTheWings I hope so!!! Let me check.

OP posts:
QuirkyQuark · 06/03/2019 10:54

I read and commented on the thread.
Hope you're ok op and trying to make sense of it all.
That journalist should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves but as we all know, she won't.

teyem · 06/03/2019 10:55

A link on Muckrack shows she's dumped the same shitty work on an Australian site called Kidspot.

MiddleAgeRage · 06/03/2019 10:56

This played on my mind last night. I am so sorry you had to go through this. I think "journalists" trawling through Mumsnet for stories is the lowest of the low.

user1479305498 · 06/03/2019 10:59

Andcwecwonder why the country is in the state it’s in, be it people actually believing the Brexit bollocks with no experience of trade , business at a non UK level or international cooperation and celebrity culture etc, we have a dumbed down population who love salacious tittle tattle. Even on here I despair when posters want the tiniest details of someone’s life going to shit or moaning when they don’t update every hour on the hour