Darren Rigby case: salient details left out of reporting

[AccordingToWhom]

Darren Rigby is a man who has been sentenced to 28 months in custody for sending hoax emails to three schools in Merseyside.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0e20ll9gz2o

https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2026/june-2026/runcorn-man-sentenced-to-28-months-for-sending-hoax-emails-to-schools/

www.google.com/amp/s/www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/man-21-sentenced-after-sending-34047071.amp

However, unless you read The Southport Lead, you would be unaware that:

• Rigby targeted girls' schools
• His reason was the supposed opression of transwomen

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=southport.thelead.uk/p/hoax-attacker-threatened-violent&ved=2ahUKEwj15JG1vO2UAxXEWUEAHdBjG6YQFnoECFwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw30Tek3HWFdsOeYvHGm54

Iain Criddle, prosecuting, told the court an email was sent at 12.53pm to Greenbank which warned that the writer was travelling to the school via taxi from Widnes. It said: “I am on my way to the school with a revolver and a machete and I’m going to shoot and stab all of your girls. You terfs are going to learn to stop mocking, deadnaming and misgendering transwomen like me. If anyone attempts to stop me, they will be shot and I will release a blood agent into the school which will poison you.”
He went on to reference the tyranny and oppression of transwomen and threatened to shoot anyone who tried to stop him, adding that the only way to stop him would be for all girls and women in Southport and Merseyside to publicly apologise.

Pretty fucking massive details to leave out of the reporting

This is appalling.

On a related note, why is he reported as being a "he" and a "man"? I mean, he is a man, but he said he was a transwoman, so....?

Spoils the 'most oppressed' narrative, innit?

Journalism in general needs a big kick up the arse: report the facts, ALL of the salient facts, and leave the moralising and politics to the opinion pages. I know news always had a slant, but it has got so much worse in the last 10-15 years.

Ahhh yes. Totally looks like a TWAW type person who we should be happy to share a single sex space with 🙄

Thanks OP, I hadn't read about those extra bits and was wondering why he was emailing those schools. Turns out he had an extra layer of nuttiness.

Or maybe he had internalised all that talk of 'annihilation' and 'literal genocide' which causes a state of hypervigilance and stress that some transpeople may be vulnerable to believing, and acting on.

That's what is so dangerous about unsupported claims of 'literal' violence, and 'Trans Days of Remembrance' in places where no trans person has been murdered - somebody might take them very seriously and act on them, in supposed 'self defence' or revenge against 'TERF's.

I think you've missed a key word in your OP here which is "hoax". There is no suggestion Rigby is actually trans or pro-trans rights or believes anything he wrote here any more than he was actually armed or actually en route to those schools. Nothing in the emails he sent was actually true.

You terfs are going to learn to stop mocking, deadnaming and misgendering transwomen like me.

All he has to do is say he is and that's all it takes, haven't you been paying attention to the way this stupidity works. You don't get to say he's not, you only get to accept what he says he is and validated it.

Exactly this.

Arguably the biggest problem with gender ideology is its complete lack of falsifiability. According to gender ideology, if someone claims they have a particular gender identity then that is what they are.

GC feminists have been pointing out the very obvious flaws in this for years. Now it's the turn of TRAs to experience the flaws for themselves🤷

That's absolutely bloody outrageous.

Maybe he never intended harming any women or girls, but it's interesting that he targeted a girls' school and made reference to 'terfs', which is quite a specialist term.

But my point remains: the hyperbole about literal genocide, the Days of Remembrance etc etc gives the false impression that transpeople in this country are oppressed, marginalised, under constant threat of annihilation and that can result in violent action being taken in 'self defence', or revenge - it has happened in the US -'keep bashing us but do not wonder why we Go BERSERK' as Robert Dugan wrote before he shot five people dead.

If Darren Rigby was just a hoaxer who happened to randomly pick on schoolgirls and terfs to threaten with death, that's good. Unfortunately, in some cases, it's not a hoax.

And you seem to have missed a key fact in the reporting that at least one of those schools is attended by survivors of the Southport knife attack.

So don't try to play it down just because it was a hoax. The guy is disturbed and dangerous.

The bbc headline which includes the word ‘hoax’ shows up clearly in the OP.

It’s impossible for us to know anything much about this man except that he’s a vile misogynist whose target for terrorising was specifically girls. Maybe he was also intending to cast blame on trans people, or maybe his motives were what he claimed. Either way, the reporting of the case seems to have been in some way self censored by the bbc etc.

Fucking hell

So who, at the various media outlets, is in charge of gatekeeping gender id then?

Cos that Canadian school killer was referred to as a woman by some outlets. Why not this dude?

That's not how trans id works.

Unless there really is an official gatekeeper role, and you hold that post?

Why didn’t he attack/threaten the boys schools? I thought men were the danger to trans people? doesn’t he want an apology from the awful men?

What makes him not trans? He says he is a trans woman.

'You terfs are going to learn to stop mocking, deadnaming and misgendering transwomen like me.'

Zoonosis appears not to have read @GreyskySexRealistsky 's 12.37 post? Did you miss it Zoonosis?

No, the hoax was hopefully that he was not actually armed.

He identified himself as a ‘transwoman’ though which by definition makes him a ‘transwoman’ and should have been reported as such.

The BBC has committed the most heinous sin of ‘misgendering’ and has also failed, yet again, in accurate and impartial reporting.

Any man who says he is a transwoman is a transwoman. No debate.

Except if he does something that is obviously bad and puts transwomen in a bad light; then he must have been lying about being trans.

It's an interesting world-view to try to hold, but it does seem to mean that you have to believe six impossible things before breakfast. (There goes the shawl again.)

There’s no suggestion that any “transwoman” is trans though. He’s as much one as any of them are.

Yeah, they don’t want that one on the team, so he’s apparently allowed to be ‘misgendered’ without all the usual TWAW caterwauling.

I honestly feel like my fucking face is melting sometimes, from all the spinning my head has to do to understand the use/misuse word salad non-logic involved in keeping this wagon on the road.

Ohhhh, is he a hoaxer gender like Bryson is rapist gender and not transgender at all?

"Hoax"= Not-Real-Trans? Thanks, I'll add that to my list, very helpful. Learn something new every day!

Sorry, Robot, I'm stealing that... "hoaxer gender"... <walks away muttering to self>