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legalities
Nov. 19th, 2007 11:51 amAnybody been following the news about the two bodies found buried in a garden? The dead girls have been missing for over 15 years, so these are important finds. But what is also important, and interesting, is the fact that someone has already been charged over it, yet is not really being discussed in greater detail - quite odd for an abductor and killer of young women. Surely it would be nice to know how they caught the guy so quickly?
Well, it's the same guy who killed the Polish girl Angelika Kluk, and who is currently doing time for that, and who committed numerous other sexual offences. The current searches of the property, and previous searches, came from leads connected to him. Maybe he even admitted something.
The reason for there being so little made of this connection appears to be a legal restriction. The BBC broadcasts in Scotland, and under Scottish law there seems to be some protection of the charged guy's privacy. (Foreign news sites make clear reference to this, by comparison.) This makes a degree of sense, but is not entirely in the public interest. After all, it's potentially reassuring to know that many offences are committed by a single person, who is now in custody. In an age where there's such a fear of crime, and especially of paedophiles, we could do with any evidence like this that suggests that there aren't actually so many of them, and that this one is no longer a thread. Also, it's ridiculous to hide this information when it's blatantly obvious that it's the case to anybody who does a tiny bit of research. It makes me wonder how much other interesting or useful information is kept hidden by the BBC. Tabloid journalism sometimes seems to go too far in making seemingly unfounded connections, but it's times like this that you can see that the 'trusted' sources are sometimes not telling the whole story either.
Well, it's the same guy who killed the Polish girl Angelika Kluk, and who is currently doing time for that, and who committed numerous other sexual offences. The current searches of the property, and previous searches, came from leads connected to him. Maybe he even admitted something.
The reason for there being so little made of this connection appears to be a legal restriction. The BBC broadcasts in Scotland, and under Scottish law there seems to be some protection of the charged guy's privacy. (Foreign news sites make clear reference to this, by comparison.) This makes a degree of sense, but is not entirely in the public interest. After all, it's potentially reassuring to know that many offences are committed by a single person, who is now in custody. In an age where there's such a fear of crime, and especially of paedophiles, we could do with any evidence like this that suggests that there aren't actually so many of them, and that this one is no longer a thread. Also, it's ridiculous to hide this information when it's blatantly obvious that it's the case to anybody who does a tiny bit of research. It makes me wonder how much other interesting or useful information is kept hidden by the BBC. Tabloid journalism sometimes seems to go too far in making seemingly unfounded connections, but it's times like this that you can see that the 'trusted' sources are sometimes not telling the whole story either.
