BBC Article updated with details "A man who admitted sending a number of threatening hoax emails to three girls schools, threatening to target pupils and staff over the "misgendering" of trans girls, has been jailed."

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

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

This went out with no details at all on the reasons or details.

Has it dawned on the BBC, I wonder, that regurgitating police forces' press releases wholesale is a bad idea, because the police lie, directly and by omission.

I mean, those of us who have complained about previous cases have told the Beeb as much, but it was fingers in ears and la-la-la at the time.

TBF, nobody will ever sit on the deck of a tanker with a cigar. Not even JKR.

I have been present when golf-club moguls have wandered into firework set-up smoking cigars, so I wouldn't bet on that

But on a tanker, the duty fireguard will pour a bucket of sand over you and stamp on the cigar and you.

We didn't quite do that as we ran him off, but I think some of us would have liked to! He was one of the committee who were paying us, so it might have been a bit of a bad idea to be too rough with him.

One should still never underestimate human stupidity. People used to put petrol into their cars while smoking a cigarette. And the first petrol station i ever used to go to regularly, when the family got our first car in the fifties, had a notice by the pumps which I remember to this day:

WHEN FILLING, NO SMOKING.
EXTINGUISH ALL LIGHTS
OIL OR GAS.

Glad to see this definition made it in: "TERFS" [an acronym of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist which has been used as a derogatory term against women opposed to gender ideology]"

I remember the original article. Glad it's been updated, although agree very few people will see the updated version. It reads to me like the journalist who wrote the update may actually be gender critical, so thorough is the U-turn

IIRC it’s now fairly similar to the report which was in a local paper or blog at the time (linked on the other thread). Though that also, I think, mentioned that as an extra twist to the vileness, some of the girls at the Southport school had been affected by the murders. I don’t think the BBC piece mentions that.

This one. So much more detail (scroll down). Put the BBC to shame

https://southport.thelead.uk/p/hoax-attacker-threatened-violent

From the correction (my bold):

"This article was originally published without including key details about this case, due to miscommunication between BBC reporters in court and the writers."

It may not be true, but it's their claim.

Fair enough😁

More likely it said "Woman Jailed", sadly.

I think they did actually know what sex he was; and since they carefully were not saying he claimed to be trans, and they published his mugshot, it was pretty obvious.

I’m confused. The BBC said the problem was court reporting, a mix up in the corrected article, but in the email to the complaint, it says the error is due to police reporting. Where can we see what the police report said?

Might this be the media release?

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

That is a masterpiece of ignoring the trans in the room, isn't it.

That must be it - it's a very close match to the original article.

Having worked at the BBC, I know for a fact that unfortunately they're propping up the careers of hundreds of local TV and radio staff across nations and regions who aren't competent to report for online (in that they are broadcasters who can't write and don't have the required shorthand skills to cover court cases and inquests). Something like 98% of BBC England's budget goes on these staff and the unions kick off every time they try to get rid of them (not that they try very hard).

Nick Wallis has gone into more details here – the BBC online report was based upon a police press release and the reporter 'didn't see' the notes of the local radio reporter who was in court (focused on compiling a radio piece, apparently, which very few people will end up listening to – local radio audience figures are on the floor). https://www.thetimes.com/uk/media/article/bbc-apology-trans-story-darren-rigby-llq3kdqfn - sorry, archive links aren't working for me atm.

So the police did their usual thing of sanitising the violent trans activist's motivation and the BBC followed suit.

It might be that the radio reporter's notes were deliberately ignored... that is a possibility. But, as I say, if the BBC has a journalist in court, then why are they sending another journalist 'notes'? Why aren't they writing the story themselves?

In this case, the BBC's costly and clunky ways of working have highlighted yet again their previous failures on this issue, causing massive scrutiny and embarrassment – from both JK and now Nick Wallis. They need to invest in some properly qualified online staff, probably from local newspapers, and a structure that means all stories are scrutinised and checked before being published.

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https://www.thetimes.com/article/1d940dfa-bb62-4af5-90fe-49756bb0b269?shareToken=4b26a072b00e0b48878ed7a0076db8dd

Fantastic article, thanks impossible. I'm so glad we've got Nick Wallis covering this topic.

Anyone with any intelligence and common sense on the TRA side should really be worried about Nick Wallis taking on this topic.

He is clever, thorough, tenacious and famously historically on the side of the goodies.

Fantastic article by Nick.

NC for this but I work at one of the 3 schools, clearly a very disturbed man

such a good article, I was hoping there'd be a sharing link on here somewhere!

They argue that the longer the BBC remains equivocal about something as fundamental as sex, its audience is unlikely to trust it on much else

couldn't agree more. after having been gaslighted by the BBC for 10 years to the point I just gave up complaining and also gave up consuming most BBC content (shout out to Rad Mac, the only reason I still pay my licence fee) when I come across one of those 'our BBC' ads I couldn't roll my eyes any harder.

I really do expect the BBC not to lie about fundamentals. I do not think that is unreasonable.

We had to lockdown school and keep kids in classrooms, they had to be escorted to the toilets, horrible.

That must have been so awful for the staff and for the pupils, though I'm sure you tried to keep everything as calm as possible for them. Worrying for the parents, too, when they found out.