A pair of teenage girls have admitted they were responsible for a hoax suicide report that duped hundreds of people.*sigh*
News of the ‘death’ of a 16-year-old called Jaydon Rothwell spread throughout Blackburn late last week.Only 2,000? I thought the Facebook Idiot Distribution was somewhat higher than that…
A tribute page on social network website Facebook was joined by more than 2,000 people with hundreds posting tribute comments.
And as Anna Racoon points out, the sudden blip in the flowers and cheap tacky soft toys must have been a welcome boost to the area!
Do they routinely monitor all such tribute websites? Did someone phone them for further details?
And why take action against them, when you refuse to take action against far more serious lies?
Almost all were from strangers who had been moved to comment by the apparent tragic death of a local boy following an overdose of mephedrone and vodka.And just why would complete strangers feel the need to comment on it? It’s a mystery to me.
But police were baffled as they had no knowledge of the teenager or his death.What’s more of a mystery to me is why the police got involved!
Do they routinely monitor all such tribute websites? Did someone phone them for further details?
Over the weekend, officers traced two teenage girls from Blackburn who had set up the site.Two officers actually wasted their time on this?
They admitted it was a prank that had got out of hand.
The girls had set up a Facebook page in the name of Jaydon Rothwell and then used it to befriend a pal of theirs, police said.
Unwittingly the girl struck up a relationship with ‘Jaydon’ - and was devastated to hear he had 'died'.
It is not clear whether this girl, or those responsible for the hoax, set up the Jaydon Rothwell RIP page…Who cares? They duped a bunch of idiots. That’s not a crime, is it?
Police Inspector Ilyas Mohmed said they were considering whether to take any action against the girls.
He said: “We have worked extensively on this inquiry and this has led to a lot of officers’ time being wasted.What action, for the love of god!? What ‘crime’ could they have possibly committed?
“We find these actions to be unacceptable and this kind of prank will not be tolerated.
"We will take action against anyone involved in this sort of behaviour in future.”
And why take action against them, when you refuse to take action against far more serious lies?
14 comments:
Sentence them to virtual community service, perhaps?
What these girls did was stupid not criminal. The time wasted by the police is simply a comment on their increasing incompetence. The fact that they will not persue the false rape claimant is outlined in this mail from the editor of the newspaper:
From: Sue Smith
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.co.uk>
Sent: Wed, 2 March, 2011 10:12:15
Subject: Re: Brimscombe rape investigation shelved after victim admits no attack took place
Its the law. While we do know the reasons, and they are valid, we cannot legally report any more than that.
Regards,
Sue
My reply outlined that comment is free unless we live in a dictatorship, her explanation was simply cow towing to the police. Also that by accepting this they now have at least one woman in their midst who has been given the green light to destroy a man's life and waste police time at will.
Although the girls in this story have in my opinion done nothing illegal as there are only victims that made themselves victims as a concequence of their own stupidity it does highlight that our youth are quite prepared to play with serious issues until it all gets a bit too ikky and then guess what, its always some one else's fault.
btw, the Email had this at the bottom:
Any views or opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Newsquest Media Group The contents of this email and any attachments are sent for the personal attention of the addressee(s) only and may be confidential. If you are not the intended addressee, any use, disclosure or copying of this email and any attachments is unauthorised - please notify the sender by return and delete the message. Any representations or commitments expressed in this email are subject to contract.
So I fully expect to get arrested for sharing her pathetic responce
Agreed. If that's what they do to amuse themselves, good luck. It's no worse than these online games that appear to consist of blowing things up and killing lots of virtual people.
the reply to my assertion that comment is free...
From: Sue Smith
To: Mike xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wed, 2 March, 2011 12:08:43
Subject: Re: Brimscombe rape investigation shelved after victim admits no attack took place
We have done our "investigative journalism" Mike and we are happy with the facts. I realise this is frustrating for the public when things can't be reported but we have to adhere to the publishing laws. There is a misconception that journalists can print whatever they like. No-one was named in this story. The matter is now closed.
Sue
One word to that, SLACK
and another:
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2088477_woman_jailed_for_false_rape_claim
her father, the accused, stood by her in court to plead that she was not sent to prison. What would you do as a parent? This is just sooooooooo sad
While we do know the reasons, and they are valid, we cannot legally report any more than that.
For Anons info:
This means several things, but usually when papers decline to report something, it is because it would be either contempt of court or it would prejudice some case in which charges have been laid but not brought to trial.
Usually a paper can report that charges have been brought, but increasingly courts are setting separate reporting restrictions, sometimes wrongly (to my mind) but the authority lies with the court, not the editor. Papers can, and do, challenge reporting restrictions if they think there is a good reason to do so.
If the false-complainant is a minor, she could automatically be covered by other codes of practice about reporting their identity which may not be law in themselves but could give rise to civil action against the paper. As the paper was very anxious to emphasize that they did not name her, this is quite a high possibility.
Another reason the CPS might have decided not to press charges is that there was no public interest in doing so. E.g. special-needs student walking home becomes confused as to what really did happen. However, neither the paper nor the CPS nor the police want the person identified as no useful purpose is served by doing so and might put the complainant at real risk.
Papers do deals all the time with the police and CPS; if they didn't they'd have to give out colouring pencils and tell the readers to fill in the white spaces.
In this case the public are told what they need to know: there is no rapist.
"And just why would complete strangers feel the need to comment on it? It’s a mystery to me."
People seem to love 'reflected tragedy' as much as they like 'reflected glory'…
In my case it is clear to me that it is an obsession born of a miscarriage in justice. The result is more often than not counterproductive but without any support an easy trap to fall into.
The truth in my case came out. I am free. But as any victim of any crime will tell you the hardest part is putting it behind you.
Why someone unaffected by this or any other crime would want to wade in is beyond me. Perhaps they have their own independent cause?
The miscarriage btw was as we saw this week, the police refusing to prosecute my accuser on various grounds. Mainly that she was/is ill. But then as Julia points out every criminal has their reasons its just that in some cases they are a get out of jail free card, in others we can all agree, so the fuck what, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
"Sentence them to virtual community service, perhaps?"
You mean, like most seem to get these days?
"What these girls did was stupid not criminal."
There seems to be a drive to criminalise acts of stupidity or unkindness. I can't think why, it's not like we've not got enough perfectly good laws on the books.
"Also that by accepting this they now have at least one woman in their midst who has been given the green light to destroy a man's life and waste police time at will."
Sadly, I think there's likely to be more than one...
"It's no worse than these online games that appear to consist of blowing things up and killing lots of virtual people."
Perhaps this started when some bright spark in the police saw the reports from abroad of police taking 'theft' of virtual items from games seriously?
"and another"
Cheers!
"People seem to love 'reflected tragedy' as much as they like 'reflected glory'…"
It's a kind of companion disorder to those sad men (usually men) who claim to be in the SAS then?
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