Anger, sing, goddess

It seems that one can never underestimate the intense power of the media. However biased, however wildly a newspaper spins around pointing the finger of blame, it will influence someone. And this is no more starkly shown than in the case of Baby P.

Let nothing detract from the horror and awfulness of the case, it is clear that this is a terrible murder. I grieve for this child, but people die, people are murdered, however sad it is. What I do not expect to happen but what has, quite disregarding of my expectations, is such a media storm, such an onslaught of anger that it has got completely out of hand.

Here are three of a number of petitions being distributed on the internet:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to take away parental rights to child murderers and paedafiles.” (sic)

“We are demanding immediate independant public enquiries to investigate the following:

- Social Services Procedures
- Demand a GMC Hearing for Dr Sabah Al Zayyat
- Review of Custodial Sentencing for Child Abuse
and Murder Cases
- Review of the Findings and Recommendations of
Victoria Climbie enquiry.”

“To: british government. Im asking people to sign my petition and support me in campaigning for killers to be exempt from the criminal juistice act 2003.” (sic)

How many people in the street cast angry blame upon the social worker? But how many of them have ever in their selfish lives given to society in the way that the people whom they so chastise have? How many of them would be willing to commit to a job which has mediocre pay, is demanding and now apparently will have you branded a murderer for one mistake? For clearly this can be no more than a mistake. If the social workers thought that that baby was truly in danger, then of course they would have acted, of course they would have saved him. But they didn’t notice, sadly and unfortunately, unlike the thousands of other children that are yearly helped by our state system. In just one or two cases, it slipped past them. Does anyone think they did this on purpose, or that they don’t regret this awful mistake? People are calling for an investigation. Of course there will be one, but it is not for the common person on the street to call, because it is, frankly, not their place to ask for legal reform on the basis of a solitary incident. Of course we need debate, but at the end of the day, this is a representative democracy, and thank god it is so, because if the sort of people writing these petitions had power, there would be lynch mobs in every city. I would defend these hard working social workers all day, because they do not deserve to be attacked by people who sit on their sofas all day yet want a flawless system without having to pay for it.

The other people who have come under intense fire, perhaps this time more to blame, are the parents of Baby P. There is no defending that what they have done is very wrong but take away their rights? Capital punishment? Torture??? Who is so uneducated about legality and so short of perspective that they would make such wild claims? Of course, there is great emotion in this whole case, but that is no excuse. When our constitution was drawn up, when it was so carefully amended, when the Bill of Human Rights was created at the end of the bloodiest war in history, they knew what they were doing. They knew how cruel man could be. So what on earth makes people think that the death of one child should trigger a change in the fundamental way we deal with justice? It is mind boggling to think that people make these claims in earnest. I’m not going to go into the arguments against capital punishment, or at all debate about the right of criminals. Justice is not about vindication, that is the unalienable truth that so many people seem not to be able to grasp. It is about helping society by helping victims and helping criminals. And thus I condemn illiterate petition creators. They should be ashamed.