“Anthony, it’s a really sad thing to hear. This weekend Caroline Flack, the popular television host, died by suicide. [1] We’ll never truly know all the reasons why. But what we do know is that in the months before her death she was hounded and bullied by the British press. [2]”
Following link [2] in the footnotes which simulate an encyclopaedia entry [that this email was not]
I found it linked to an article citing serious empirical evidence to support this assertion. Such as a tweet by Phillip Schofield. While we may indeed never know why ...perhaps wait for the inquest? But then that would like shutting your mouth before the trial. Except the trial is already over and the media are guilty. And possibly the CPS as well...
“Already over half a million people have signed a petition demanding better rules for how the press is allowed to behave. Will you add your name now?”
…continues the email. A question to which the answer is no particularly when the law it proposes is as vaguely worded and downright sinister as:
“To consider a law that would make it a criminal offence, not dissimilar to Corporate Manslaughter, for the British Media to knowingly and relentlessly bully a person, whether they be in the public eye or not, up to the point that they take their own life.”
Within hours of Ms Flack’s death my timeline was full of comments about people rewriting their timelines and tweet. However, I saw no evidence of this. Before she died I had no knowledge of who she was. I was vaguely aware of the existence of the program Love Island in the same way that I was vaguely aware of the sewer that runs down the end of my garden but as with the sewer at the bottom of my garden I try to live my life in ignorance of its existence and manage this most of the time.
But apparently “the media” were engaged in a dastardly plot to bully Ms Flack to death and we need a law to regulate this despite the fact that the there being no single organising mind behind this bullying there isn’t a single person/people who could be charged with this new Corporate Manslaughter offence.
Actually the coverage I could find in the mainstream media was largely restrained possibly because of sub judice legislation which puts reporting restrictions on cases that are due to go to court. But maybe I missed something as none of this is ever on my radar…
However the above petition/email was quickly beaten in the impracticality and emotive hyperbole stakes by a different petition email organised by change.org organised by actress Stephanie Davis (who I believe has also had run-ins with the media but you'll forgive me if I don't catalogue them) who informs me that:
"There should be new and stricter laws around safeguarding celebrities and people in the public eye. These laws should be put in place to prevent the newspapers, magazines, all forms of media and paparazzi from:
1 Releasing information that there is no evidence for and is therefore false
2 Printing source quotes from anyone or an unreliable source
3 Invading privacy and sharing private information that is detrimental to the celebrity, their mental health and those around them
4 Paparazzi taking and printing images without permission
5 Releasing an individuals private medical or health related information or their sexual orientation
6 Releasing articles about leaked explicit photos, videos and revenge porn
7 Stricter legal boundaries regarding unwanted trespassing nearby the property where the individual resides, or is visiting"
Taking those in order.
1 I fear it would be impractical to prevent people talking bollocks or enforce a law which meant everything stated had to be true and provable as it would lead to the imprisonment of most religious leaders
2 Does she really want to imprison people for quoting other people?
3 And what is privacy? It is hardly private that the late Ms Flack’s relationship was so physically abusive that ambulances and police were called to her flat. So abusive indeed that her man ended up in hospital. He says he doesn’t support the prosecution but then the law was changed recently so that the police can prosecute the victims of intimate partner violence without their support because of the recognised dangers of Stockholm Syndrome etc…
4 I fear programs like Panorama would suffer without the Freedom of Panorama
5 Isn’t that already illegal?
6 Okay she may have a point there but how is it related to Ms Flack?
7 I’d dearly love trespassing to be a criminal offence again but the fact is if the police locked up everyone who was a civil trespasser the prisons would all be full. I do feel sometimes however when I walk past Buckingham Palace and read the signs that say “This is a protected site under Section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Trespass on this site is a criminal offence” that it’s one law for them and another for us – because demonstrably it is.
Ms Davis continues…
“This will ensure that celebrity’s mental health and human rights are being respect appropriately, safely and with a duty of care. It will also help their family & friend’s mental health as they are affected also as unwanted negative attention is then attracted towards them and invades their privacy too. This will better prevent self harm, suicide, substance abuse, and poor mental health. Let’s stand together and once and for all make a change.”
But the media is not automatically responsible for the self harm, suicide, substance abuse, and poor mental health of the famous – and why should it be assumed to be without evidence …of which I see not very much.
Ms Davis accompanies her petition with a video which is high on emotion and low on coherent thought. But then she is an actress who knew the deceased not a politician. By accident I switched on Channel 4 and they were interviewing the candidates for the Labour leadership election which, like the sewer at the bottom of my garden, I am vaguely aware of but occasionally notice more distinctly when it smells bad.
An interesting moment occurred when an audience member asked an open question about the late Ms Flack and the media and Christian Guru Murthy asked Kier Starmer – the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service - whether the Crown Prosecution Service was right to prosecute Ms Flack...
Now I think pretty much the answer to this question should probably be yes since it was undeniable that someone had been so badly injured in a domestic incident that they had to go to hospital but I may be wrong so I was interested to hear what Kier had to say. He said that he had not been head of the CPS for 10 years and so it was wrong for him to comment because he hadn’t seen the file and that it was wrong for people who hadn’t done a job for 10 years to tell people doing it now what they thought of how they were doing it. Well, the Labour party hasn’t been in power for 10 years … does this mean that they have no opinions on how the Conservatives are running the government? Of course not – they have nothing but opinions. Here is a man who had the ultimate personal insight into how the institution worked and what could he tell us? Nothing. He didn’t even have to give a yes or no answer – he could have at least given us an insight into how such decisions are taken. But what did he offer us? Zilch. He and the others just gave us platitudes about social media site owners not taking responsibility for their content and avoided pointing the finger at any individuals or institutions in the mainstream media. So what did we learn? Nothing.
It’s all the fault of the plebs of social media. Obviously… funny that these people who changed the law to allow the CPS to prosecute people for intimate partner violence without the support of the bullied partner for their own protection can’t even stand up for the CPS when it might need their support. Not even when you used to be the head of it?
Postscript
Since this page continues to be of public interest.... Well, now we have had the inquest....
It seems Ms Flack did admit to whacking her man but Detective Inspector Bateman (a woman if that's relevant) decided to press for a prosecution rather than a caution claiming that her admission of violence was not actually an admission of guilt. Although the Coroner accused the police of "splitting hairs" . This went up to CPS lawyers who approved the prosecution. Ms Flack's mother blamed DI Bateman. DI Bateman said she treated Flack no differently to anyone else. The Coroner insinuated there seemed to be a link between Ms Flack's increasing profile and increasing mental instability but it was all a bit vague
... Etc...
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