Inaccurate BBC story - Trans identified male

[WineIsMyCarb]

Bbc Sussex has described trans identified male murderer as 'woman' throughout story, with no reference at all to his sex or trans identity.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp00de3r3qro

If you wish to complain about this inaccurate reporting of a male's violent crime, the bbc's complaints link is here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints

Not a statistic until somebody is convicted.

Not a statistic until conviction.

This is a failure in BBC reporting, but the bigger problem, to my mind, is the police deliberately and knowingly lying in their press release. Lots of media outlets no longer bother sending reporters to court (mostly for reasons of cost) and so rely either on police press releases or agency copy. Because accuracy is important in court reporting, you ought to be able to trust the police to tell the truth, at least in matters such as these. Clearly that is no longer possible.

It's pretty wild. I could say more, but I'm bound by law.

I agree. The police seem to be captured (you've all seen, I assume, the news that Police Scotland officers are to be paid a day's pay if they take part in Pride parades – not police them, just attend them.)

The rot starts with them.

Believe you me, that's exactly what's happening. Be careful what you wish for.

I'm an agency reporter. Buy a paper - stop the rot.

I do buy papers. Unfortunately, not enough other people do.

The BBC are bound by their editorial rules on using trusted sources. One of which is the police.

But who decides the police are "trusted"? Because they clearly can't be on this. It is known that they repeatedly lie.

The absolute minimum would be to clarify on every repetition of a police statement - if you have no other information - that the police say it's a "woman", but the actual sex is unknown, as the police do not base "man" or "woman" on sex.

Suggestion:

"The police described the accused as a "woman", but their policies base this purely on an arrestee's choice, so this does not mean the accused was actually female. Other information to confirm the accused was female was not available.

"Statistically, females rarely commit this sort of crime, so the possibility of the accused being male is quite high - in the last X years Y% of "women" convicted of Z were male."

That would be informing your readers. Although it would also highlight a failure to actually locate the truth.

I think they used this blog as the source for their piece:

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2024/06/02/joanna-stuart-rowland/

But they know the police lie about this. The problem is they don't care about the police lying about the sex of criminals, because they like to lie about it as well.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5032517-5032517-tim-davie-bbc-giving-evidence-to-culture-media-and-sports-committee

Up to that point, we were expecting to see a woman.

Really? I don't know what information you had about his crime before the court appearance, but if you asked on here what we would have thought if there was a "woman" in court accused of killing her husband with a samurai sword, most of us would think it likely that the "woman" would turn out to be a man.

It's happening far too frequently now. It's only a few months since the BBC reports on Scarlet Blake referred to him as a woman. It's really not unusual for violent "women" to turn out to be men. If you weren't aware of that you really haven't been paying attention.

Fair enough.
I’d still like to know the statistics for those that are convicted though.

I'm a full time crime reporter.

Again, at what point do you suspect they are lying?

Check the dates.

I can take you through the legal position with regard to trusted sources.
This is about policy and the PR industry.
Truth is a very loaded word. Also, there's no conviction in this case. Contempt of Court rules apply.

Thank you Barry for your insight. I pay subscriptions for 4 newspapers and ditched the Guardian over their trans coverage. I don't pay for the Daily Mail but I did buy it on holidays when the Times wasn't available. Your newspaper has been invaluable in their coverage of what is really happing in courts as regards trans. Speaking for myself I appreciate your coming on here to explain how reporting works.

Again, at what point do you suspect they are lying?

Women on this board have a long experience of the BBC misrepresenting all aspects of this issue. People have complained and received unsatisfactory replies many times.

I can take you through the legal position with regard to trusted sources.

I'd be interested in understanding this, thank you.

I'm freelance. I'd recommend buying your local paper if you want to help improve news coverage.

I'm pressed for time right now, but in a nutshell taking a police press release at face value is justified since it offers a certain amount of legal protection if the cops have it wrong. It's difficult to get sued if it's he police information you are relying on. I'll look for documents later.
Once it gets to court, you can only report what you hear and see.

It's not misrepresenting if you don't know any different or you are accurately reporting a trusted source or a court hearing.

@unclebarry I'm really appreciating your knowledge and perspective. Thank you for joining the thread.

I'd be interested to know if you have any information, or further knowledge ( from your line of work) about the the two 'women' who sexually assaulted and left a 17 year old boy unconscious in a wooded area in Sussex a number of months ago?

The report, at the time, described the two women as being unusually tall for the average woman.....one was well over 6ft.....and had long pink hair.