Reportage of the Mary Ann Leneghan case

ishmael whale

On 13th March the Irish Independent describe a case as ‘six men accused of raping and murdering British girl Mary-Ann Leneghan’. The next day it describes the case as ‘six British men charged with murdering teenager Mary-Ann Leneghan.’

The apparent change in focus in the case to being about an assault on a ‘British’ girl seems to remove the Irish interest (her father is Irish, as has been widely reported in earlier coverage). The second change, referring to an assault by six ‘British’ men brings another slight twist. In UK, the media coverage of the case has attracted some comment when BNP press releases started appearing in Google news searches. BNP, given their racist policies, enjoy drawing attention to cases involving people from ethnic minorities assaulting whites and saw the case as offering a chance for propaganda.

So what’s my point? Maybe the apparently pointless introduction of the term ‘British’ by the Indo was just a bit of careless editing, intending to just indicate that the case occurred abroad (although if it was, it was hardly successful as presumably six British men could have assaulted a British girl in Bundoran.) Or maybe someone in the editing chain is toying around with the term ‘British’ to see if they can give the story a twist to attract readers, regardless of whether nationality has any particular relevance in the case.

http://www.unison.ie/breakingnews/?ca=27&si=88510&breakingnews=1
11:37 Tuesday March 14th 2006
The jury in the trial of six British men charged with murdering teenager Mary-Ann Leneghan last year is deliberating for a third day today. The 16-year-old, whose father is a native of Co Mayo, was kidnapped, tortured, raped and stabbed to death in Reading last May. Her 18-year-old friend also underwent a similar ordeal, but survived despite being shot in the head. The gang apparently abducted the pair as revenge for the older girl setting up one of the defendants to be robbed of his drugs at his flat a month earlier.

http://www.unison.ie/breakingnews/index.php3?ca=27&si=88436
08:17 Monday March 13th 2006
The jury in the trial of six men accused of raping and murdering British girl Mary-Ann Leneghan last year is due to continue its deliberations today. The 16-year-old, whose father is a native of Co Mayo, was kidnapped, raped and stabbed to death in Reading last May. Her 18-year-old friend also underwent a similar ordeal, but survived despite being shot in the head.

The two girls had been kidnapped and taken to a guesthouse where they were tortured and sexually assaulted before being driven to a park and left for dead.

The six men charged with carrying out the attack are all aged between 18 and 23. Five have denied all the charges against them, while one had admitted murder and kidnap, but denies assault and rape. The jury in the case retired to consider its verdict last Friday.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,1688405,00.html
Google has defended the integrity of its news service after it emerged that reports filed by the British National party are being listed as sources on its website.

In the week that the leader of the British National party, Nick Griffin, appears in court on charges of inciting racial hatred after being secretly filmed by a BBC documentary team, the BNP's news reports are being listed on Google News alongside those from organisations such as the BBC and Reuters.

One article, written by the BNP's south-east England "correspondent" about the trial of six men accused of murdering 16-year-old Mary-Ann Leneghan, is the first news source listed when searching under the dead girl's name.
The article, which accused the BBC of double standards in not reporting the colour of the defendants in the case, is listed ahead of reports from the BBC, Reuters, Channel 4, the Times and the Telegraph….

For anyone interested, general background to the case can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/4786892.stm

smeggle

update on that story is five have been found guilty and one count against another man undeliberation.

Sorry - no source as I caught it on the national news earlier...

A Dub in Glasgo

It is the classic dilemma for Irish newspapers on how they report news items which affect Irish born or British born with Irish parent people that are not living in Ireland. Is the person Irish or British? How do they introduce the Irish angle? Another example of this is the poor chap who took part in the clinical drug trials and is now in a coma.

Hopefully the people that were convicted of this murder will spend a long time in prison irrespective of where they came from and who the victim was.

whiskeyman

I know it's not directly linked to the query re reporting British etc.., but this link gives a shocking account of what happened:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4664492.stm

Personally, I was always amazed at the seemingly lack of coverage this story got. However, it appears both victims had been involved in the dodgy side, and the media have seemed to back away from becoming too sympathetic (Holly Wells & Jessica Chapman being the extreme example).

BBC site wrote:

As Richard Latham QC, prosecuting, admitted: "Mary-Ann (and her friend) were not without their problems. Mary-Ann was bunking off school, neither had a job. They were certainly not the sort of girls who would have been tucked up at home at 10 o'clock at night."

I've no doubt that if this was in the US (in certain states), all the guilty parties would face the death sentence.

fly_agaric

Whiskeyman wrote:

Personally, I was always amazed at the seemingly lack of coverage this story got. However, it appears both victims had been involved in the dodgy side, and the media have seemed to back away from becoming too sympathetic (Holly Wells & Jessica Chapman being the extreme example).

offtopic>
Yes. It didn't fit in well with the traditional media sterotypes for such murders - twisted white males and purer-than-driven-snow female victims.

Victor

whiskeyman wrote:

However, it appears both victims had been involved in the dodgy side, and the media have seemed to back away from becoming too sympathetic (Holly Wells & Jessica Chapman being the extreme example).

They hardly deserved the treatment they received did they?

blueshirt

The fact is this unfortunate girl was raped, tortured and killed by 6 black men. It probably goes against the grain for you PC types to think that black men could be guilty of any crime. But when they are shown up for what they are people like you scream about how disadvantaged they are etc. yawn!

whiskeyman

Victor wrote:

They hardly deserved the treatment they received did they?

Of course they didn't.... I dont think you took my point right.
As already mentioned, the victims weren't exactly "whiter-than-white" outstanding young members of the community, no usual high level of emotional attachment (IMO) was made in the media.

mountainyman

blueshirt wrote:

The fact is this unfortunate girl was raped, tortured and killed by 6 black men. It probably goes against the grain for you PC types to think that black men could be guilty of any crime. But when they are shown up for what they are people like you scream about how disadvantaged they are etc. yawn!

5 black men...
Interesting that the possibility that this was racial hasn't been raised at all.

MM

mountainyman

whiskeyman wrote:

...
As already mentioned, the victims weren't exactly "whiter-than-white"...

What did mary ann do? she was only 16.
MM

simu

They were all mixed up with drugs and drug dealers. Afair, these guys thought the two girls had ratted them out and were avenging this. So, that would rule out a racial motive.

mountainyman

I think this is one of the killers' bebo
http://sinja_mc.bebo.com

Weird to think that the killers were between 18 and 20 and now they will be in their 40s when they get out of jail. I mean weird to see one of the killers as a teenager with a bebo and so on. I mean my brother has one.

MM