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The opening two paragraphs of today’s Sun leader could only have been written by someone with no shame whatsoever:

NOW we know the value of a baby’s life in 21st century Britain. It is pitifully low.

Yesterday’s sentences on the three monsters found guilty of causing or allowing the death-by-torture of 17-month-old Baby Peter will enrage decent parents everywhere.

We didn’t need the Baby Peter case to inform us of this though: could this possibly be the same newspaper that earlier in the week we discovered had not paid a penny to the Patten family for their story which it turned out was completely false in any event? The way the paper connived with the parents in that case, and then failed to stump up a penny, should too enrage decent parents everywhere. The paper’s campaign on Baby P is so at odds with its behaviour concerning Alfie Patten that it suggests that the paper doesn’t care one jot for Baby P or children in general; all it really cares about is its own sales and profiting from the kind of dehumanisation which it has specialised in over the last couple of days. Then again, that isn’t the slightest bit surprising.

The leader goes on to misleadingly give the sentences handed down to the three involved in the case, as does the paper’s article, not giving hardly any emphasis whatsoever to the fact that the mother was sentenced to 10 years, with a minimum of 5, the step-father 20 years with a minimum of ten, as well as a concurrent 12-year sentence for raping a two-year-old girl, and the lodger to six years, with a minimum of 3. In addition, all were given indeterminate sentences, which means they have to pass courses and convince parole panels that they are no longer any kind of threat before they can be released. The Guardian points out that since the “indefinite” sentences were introduced,less than 50 of those given them have been released at the earliest possible opportunity.

It also goes on to undermine its whole previous campaign, which targeted only social workers and a doctor involved in the care of Baby Peter:

Many social workers do a wonderful job for little reward or praise. But far too many children are being deserted by police, doctors, lawyers and care staff. They are trapped in abusive, dysfunctional families screaming for help into the deaf ears of officialdom.

Why then did the paper not attack the police, doctors and lawyers, all of whom failed just as much as the social workers did, with the same vehemence as it did the social workers? Was it simply because social workers, unlike the other three organisations, have far fewer individuals willing or prepared to defend them?


The Sun knows above all that stories such as this sell. Its top three reports at the moment are this, Perv Gary Glitter shaving his beard off, and Paedo victim’s chilling claim. You almost have to wonder if Rebekah Wade or those in charge suffer from monomania, such is their apparent obsession with children either being abused or potentially becoming victims. Strange that when it comes down to it, as the Alfie Patten example shows, they show just as much contempt for children and their emotions as those criticise.

Emotional pornography in today’s Sun leader:

But today, when Judge Stephen Kramer sentences the three monsters involved in Baby Peter’s death, he will have to consider more than the failings of organisations meant to protect vulnerable children.


He must also send out a message that depraved brutes, like the trio involved in this baby’s horrible end, have no place in a civilised society.

It is hard to think of a punishment that fits this particular crime without reducing ourselves to the level of the guilty.

The judge must reflect that even the wildest animals care for their young.

They do not leave them screaming for protection like Baby Peter, as they slowly and sadistically destroy their bodies.

His evil mother, her sadistic child-rapist boyfriend and the paedophile lodger all face 14 years behind bars. The boyfriend faces life in jail for the separate rape conviction.

All of them must now get the maximum sentence possible. With no remission. Not a single day.

The Sun really should get an award for such writing: no other newspaper so successfully dehumanises those convicted of crimes. It doesn’t matter that it credits those responsible for Baby Peter’s death with intelligence and planning which the evidence the court received hardly backs up, or indeed that even the baby’s father detected nothing wrong with him despite seeing him only the weekend before he died, which perhaps provides an insight into the other failings; it really has just gripped hold of the outrage that surrounded this case, for both right and wrong, and is squeezing every drop that it can from it.

Predictably then, it’s already launched another petition calling for the sentences handed down to be lengthened, despite all being sentenced to indeterminate sentences, with the paper seizing on how the mother could out within 3 years, the boyfriend within 8 and the lodger within 1, although to call that unlikely would be putting it lightly. It’s also reopened the comments for the first time since they got out of hand, and they are also, wholly unsurprising. They also echo the Sun’s dehumanisation:

 

ALL 3 OF THEM SHOULD MEET THE HANGMAN!!!!!!!!!!

Death penalty should be brought back for these three animals. 


they should be locked up for life !!!! and for him bring back the electric chair, save our taxes !!!thats disgusting.If I were in charge they would all get the death penalty.& I would flick the switch or stick the needle in.********.

These 3 individuals are so sick and twisted. As a mother to a baby boy myself, I get so emotional and upset when I hear any of this story. A life sentence is too good for them. Why waste tax payers money? Bring back the death penalty for such evil monsters! We can only hope their lives are made a living hell by fellow inmates.

THE JUDGES IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD BE SACKED AND LET PARENTS AND PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT COMMITTED ANY CRIME DEAL OUT SENTENCES,NOT JUDGES WHO LIVE IN IVORY TOWERS.

the person who thinks the sentences were reasonable is obviously no beter than those three who should rot in hell

Can’t believe this is happening in Britain in 2009. 

The justice system was better 100 years ago.

Protection for the evil, is that what the British justice system is all about.

There is no chance for children born into evil like this, if if this is the punishment they get.

Quite how the Sun’s leader tomorrow will go one up on today’s sense of fury will be difficult, but it doubtless will.

Some really revolting journalism from the Sun concerning Baby P, yet again:

Vile, sick, twisted, sickening, why doesn’t the paper tell us what it really thinks? More pertinently, how does the paper know that she isn’t sincere? It of course doesn’t, but that is something which has always identified the Sun – it doesn’t think that anyone can genuinely express sorrow for past offences, let alone completely repent and as a result, be forgiven for what they did. It showed that when Learco Chindamo, described by his prison governor as one of the only people he believed had ever been fully reformed by his time spent inside was freed, demanding that he be deported to a country which he had not set foot in since he was a young child.


Regardless of her pleas, Baby Peter’s mother is undoubtedly facing a lengthy custodial sentence, not least because no judge will dare to give a derisory one when both public and press anger would be huge were he or she to do so. The Sun, like the tabloid press at large has in the past, seems to want her to go on suffering long after she has been released, as it seems likely she will have to, like Maxine Carr, be given a new identity to save her from vigilantes. Even better, then it can complain about the cost to the public purse of doing so, so it’s getting the hatred stirring as soon as it possibly can. All this comes in the same week as it succeeded in contributing to the “distress” of Alfie Patten; not bad work for a paper that claims to always be on the side of the public.

P.S.

The paper runs a quite wonderful advert for other sections of the News International empire today, with a feature on how not eating like the Simpsons provides a wonderful example. Scraping barrels anyone?

It’s a real shame that the revelation that the Sun’s story concerning Alfie Patten has been shown to be completely wrong isn’t getting the attention it deserves, with the continuing row over MPs expenses overshadowing it, because the account of what actually seems to have happened continues to worsen.  


In what seems to be a growing pattern of newspapers promising payments for stories only to later then renege on the details, it now appears that the Sun did not pay Patten’s parents any money for the story. Whether this was because they had no intention of doing so, knowing that it would breach the Press Complaints Commission’s code if they did is unclear, and it has to be said we are relying on the distinctly unreliable Max Clifford for the allegation that the paper had promised a large sum of money for the story which it then failed to stump up (his claim that he stopped the coverage seems to be erroneous; social services got a court order which definitely did stop it). The Guardian does however confirm that the paper has now promised that it will set-up a trust fund for the child itself, which distinctly suggests that considering that Patten will now presumably have no involvement with the bringing up of the child, no payment is going to be made to either him or his parents.


Clifford, for once, does seem to be on the side of justice in this case. In a previous interview with the Graun, he said that he had started representing the Patten family because of the tabloid mob which was trying to desperately get their own side of the story, trying his best to curb the excesses they were resorting to. Whether if they had gone to him first rather than to the Sun he would hold the same view is questionable, but when even Clifford thinks that a story should never have been published you ought to sit up and take notice.

The Sun, predictably, still sees no shame in what it has subjected a 13-year-old boy to as a result of both their greed and his parents’ initial attempts to gain financially from the situation they seemed to have found themselves in. There is no apology in today’s paper, and no editorial comment defending their reporting of the story, which is even more pathetic than if they were bothering to defend their journalism. There is however, remarkably, a comment from the paper’s agony aunt attached to the main piece on the story, headlined “[K]ids who are given no sense of values”. A more applicable headline would be “Journalists who are given no sense of values”, as quite clearly Rebekah Wade, a woman who has repeatedly campaigned supposedly on the behalf of children, such as for Sarah’s law, saw nothing wrong with paying (or rather, not) for a story about teenage pregnancy when they hadn’t bothered to even ascertain the basic facts or to give even the slightest thought to what the publicity they were about to come under would do those involved’s already fractured psyches.

The not paying for the story or paying less than promised is not just a Sun technique, but is now seemingly increasingly a ploy used by all the tabloids. Most recently the Sunday Express apparently refused to pay for their exclusive about Jacqui Smith’s husband claiming for watching two pornographic films on expenses, which came from the same source whom has since sold the full details to the Telegraph. Prior to that, the News of the World paid a lesser sum than promised to the dominatrix who secretly filmed Max Mosley taking part in an orgy, for which he subsequently successfully sued on privacy grounds. Most indefensibly, the News of the Screws also, despite signing a contract with Iraq veteran Justin Smith for an interview, worth £15,000, then tore it up and said they would “only pay £1,000, £1,500 tops”.


These are the same people, it’s worth bearing in mind, who are currently raging against members of parliament for their expenses fiddles and lies. Despite everything that can be justifiably thrown at MPs, none of their claims have directly affected individual lives; when newspapers renege on deals and use and abuse the likes of Alfie Patten, they care nothing for the damage they leave in their wake. The only way we will get the root and branch reform that is required in all areas of our political culture is not just through a general election, as the Sun is calling for, but through the throwing out also of the media barons that have done just as much if not more to coarsen and diminish our representatives while also thwarting reform that threatens them as much as it does those with their noses in the trough. Any reform that focuses only on parliament and not on the media also is doomed to failure.