A consequence of the right to be forgotten (under GDPR law)?

[BonfireLady]

Request - if you think you know the name of (or any other personal identifiable information about) the killer in the example below, please do not add it to this thread. If anyone does add these details, please could you report the comment for removal

I was talking to someone IRL about a recent court case that hit the headlines. The convicted killer was described as a woman who killed her sibling and stole a possession. I used it as an example of (yet another 😔) crime perpetrated by a male yet reported as having been committed by a female.

I googled a few key words to pull up the evidence of the killer's sex, having remembered reading about the case before it went to court.... nothing. It's like I must have imagined it.

Then, I scrolled to the bottom and was informed by the search engine that some results may have been removed because of the ruling from Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) about the right to be forgotten. After a bit more digging I found that this law had passed in 2014 (so I assume it's part of the UK version of GDPR that followed Brexit) and that action will only be taken to remove results if someone requests this.

A little bit more digging suggests that this law doesn't allow anyone to request removal of their sex if it is in the public interest to know it. However, it's not clear who decides where this threshold sits.

Does anyone else remember this case being about a male killer because of information they read online? If so, which country are you in and can you still see that information somewhere online, either via a search engine or directly on a website?

Assuming I'm not going mad, if the right to be forgotten allows anyone (perhaps with a GRC under the GRA?) to have facts about their sex removed from the internet, we're in for some of the darkest times yet re free speech.

There is no user 'mnhq' so tagging them doesn't work. You need to report the post or email them.

@BonfireLady I’ve always felt there was something ‘off’ about the reporting on this case from the get-go. That’s a definite memory. The identical ages at the time of the crime (69 yrs), the tabloids’ use of ‘sisters’ and not ‘twins’ (the media love a set of lady twins), the MO (‘blunt force trauma’), the psychopathy of the attack, the blurry sparse photo(s) …

It’s a published newspaper story.

Yes. With personal identifiable information in it that would be inappropriate for the discussion in this thread.

There are other published news stories about the incident from around the same time too.

There have been many published news stories referring to women committing other crimes, where it later transpired that the sex of the perpetrator didn't match the reported information.

NB I went for belt and braces and used both the reporting button and a tag. If the tag doesn't work, fair enough.

There is a Facebook page discussing this case which includes comments along the lines that early reports included the information the killer is a trans identified male, but that this has since been removed. So clearly there are others who had the same thought. I have no idea if it’s true though.

Good idea not to include the names on this thread. Even though it’s a current news story I don’t think it’s appropriate to have speculation on this tied to the names of those involved.

Thank you for sharing this.

early reports included the information the killer is a trans identified male

This ⬆️ (i.e. some mainstream media - but not all, as per usual). On a positive note, if I've gone full tin hat ga ga in remembering what I saw with my own eyes, at least I'm not alone 😬

And 🙏 re this from your follow-up comment:

Good idea not to include the names on this thread.

It's perfectly fine to link to a published news story.

This case is all over the media, and you get loads of results for it if you search the name of the offender. I'm surprised you could think of this as something that is being erased in some way.

Also, I think that speculating about this person's sex is unfounded. I've never seen any grounds for this.

My post? Dont be daft it’s literally a published article with no ‘secret’ details. Just doesn’t back up your weird obsession that there’s more to this.

there is zero need to remove my post. It just doesn’t back up the op’s fixation that something is being covered up. It’s a link to a published tabloid newspaper article.

I’m surprised that the press isn’t all over this story, hyping it up to get clicks.

Jennifer Abbott’s professional profile suggests her father was a diplomat and she grew up in European cities. Her US citizenship suggests she moved to the states. She became a film director and was later killed by her homeless older sister (older by just one year). This is the stuff of movies and the type of story the reels people in.

Maybe there is enough global drama at the moment without needing to farm engagement from stories like this.

Assuming there is an element of truth in OP's suspicion, wouldn't it be relevant in terms of where the sentence is to be served?

Has this been made public?

There are trans identified men who claim to be the mother of their children. And news outlets/politicians/law enforcement who go along with it.
Not saying this is the case here, but it's not proof this person is a woman either.

I know the case you are talking about and I also had the same suspicions given the nature of the crime and the photo of the offender. But I don't think the suspicions are correct. I'm outside the UK/EU and can find nothing to suggest anything other than what the news articles report. I do think in 2026 if the offender were born male it would be made clear, they do for other cases. In 2016, no, but things have changed a lot.

It is definitely possible to keep things hidden and off the internet (see Claire Freemantle who killed two schoolgirls in Wimbledon with her car) but you need to have money and probably connections which it doesn't seem like this offender has.

One of the reasons why it feels odd I think is because it is so rare for women to kill other women.

My understanding is that women who kill women are usually related to the victim, so in this case it is not so rare because they are sisters.

I also wondered about the sex of the murderer and I wonder if maybe the murderer has Swyer Syndrome and has had IVF with a donated egg. This may account for the photos seeming ambiguous about natal sex.

Forgot to save the link but SEEN in Journalism is implying (I think) that it is because the media has been so dishonest in reporting that now the assumption of many is that they are lying in this case.

An unexpected consequence, or even obvious consequence, or people not trusting the new media because too often it later become clears if not actually lying they were economical with the truth.