When is information perhaps too much?

This is a dreadful crime but I cannot feel that the more the press goes on about this murder, with lots more talk and "gossip" about the details, the more the poor child and her family lose even more dignity.
There has to be a line somewhere in between these. For all concerned.
It is very sad.

glammagran I totally agree. The questions reporters ask really infuriate me sometimes.

Capital punishment would stop him from doing it again! He doesn’t deserve to live.
As for the IS girl - I can’t believe her naivety; she chose to go to Syria, she should stay there.

I wondered how long it would be before hanging was mentioned.

From the little I've read on the subject, countries where capital punishment still exists do not appear to have lower murder rates so it is very debatable whether it is a deterrent.

I absolutely loathe it when the press ask a victim of accident or crime how they felt when they found out what had happened to a loved one. What possible value can it add for the watching public?

And again another young girl murdered and her killer a young person too.Links to pornography cited in the case.
news.sky.com/story/viktorija-sokolova-teen-detained-for-life-over-hammer-attack-murder-11644926

I do not think having capital punishment reduces violent crime.

I was stunned at this,I know the area well and cant believe something so vile happened there .It beggers belief .I dont believe people are born evil so I have to assume something made this young man turn out this way.Whether the drugs the wee souls dad gave him were to blame I dont know but if they were the dad has to share the blame .Its a horrible crime and I cant imagine the pain this family are going through .Its every mothers worst nightmare ,I hope they can find some peace .

Its at times like this that I wish we still had hanging.

breeze If we don't hear the details we can't spot the signs
Are you saying that making public all the gruesome details of this case and other similar ones makes it possible to identify young people who are likely to commit horrendous crimes?
Then, when you’ve ‘spotted the signs’, then what happens?

In the 19th century unpleasant details of court cases reported in the newspapers would have particularly nasty sections in latin as, obviously, ladies wouldn't be able to read that.
The Alisha case is horrible. Just appalling. The jury must be traumatised. I expect they would be excused any further jury service after that. I hope so anyway.

I wonder what is going through the mind of Alesha's father as he was selling cannabis to the murderer.
I agree it must have been harrowing for her mother and grandparents to hear and have made public all those awful details.

Yes I was just going to mention Ted Bundy. You can't judge a book by the cover of course.

....... and Ted Bundy, he looked alright on the outside, but rotten through and through!

I agree with your comment * Eloethan*

'Looking like such a nice young man' may have been part of the problem KatyK he was trusted.

Sadly, children are often murdered or abused by 'such nice young men' because they have fooled people.

Someone mentioned earlier he had shown signs of abnormal behaviour. Such a pity no one had picked up on that.

Anyone remember the case of Andrew Cunanan? What a nice young man he seemed to be. Total fruitcake and serial killer but hid it well.

If we don't hear the details we can't spot the signs. And at the end of the day, we 'do' have a choice.

I would rather be informed. That does not mean I enjoy hearing it.

Slightly off topic:-
I remember reading that an expert witness in the enquiry into the Lockerbie disaster said some of the passengers may have regained consciousness before the crash. How much kinder for the relatives if he had told a white lie and said they wouldn't have known anything about it. What harm would it have done to let them think their loved ones hadn't suffered?

I think hearing that he raped a six year old girl probably gives enough information to know the serious injuries that were caused to her. There wasn't, in my opinion, any need to give explicit details.

pollyanna Do you ever wonder why a child or young person would commit such a horrific act? Is it enough to just write them off as evil, or do you think it might be useful to find out if factors in a person's early life have contributed to them carrying out such monstrous acts? I realise that this may be construed as an attempt to somehow justify such terrible crimes. It is not. But I think it is more constructive to try and understand what makes people dangerous to others and maybe have a chance of eliminating the major factors that might lead to it happening.

Rage, hatred and feelings of violent revenge might be a natural response but, other than as a way of dealing with the horror of hearing about such sickening crimes, I don't think it helps to prevent them.

pollynana I agree. Unless you know what he did, you could think he was misunderstood.

Oldwoman No. I wouldn't want to see someone being beheaded. Neither would I want to have seen with my own eyes that dear little girl being murdered. But, I, and I appreciate everyone is different, do want to know what is out there so I can be aware. I want to know if this sort of thing is on the increase and why.

If the media just reported, '5 children were murdered last year'. That's all. We would all be asking, Where? How? Why? What drove he/she to do such a dreadful thing?

And, to be fair to the media, I have noticed in recent times that although you do still get some sensationalism they do not show 'live' graphic scenes as they used to. As an example, I was very upset when I saw on tv the murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. The footage showed her in distress. I do not think that footage would be shown now.

I do not agree with tragic events being sensationalised in a distasteful way but I do want to know what we're dealing with. The problem is, where to draw the line. There has always been the odd horrific twisted person out there, like Ian Brady. However, in recent times it seems there has been an increase in the perversion aspect of some crimes. It bothers me. How can we stop these things unless we understand them. And in the meantime, warn our own to be vigilant.

Must be awful to be on jury service too in such cases.

I think we do need to know exactly what he has done for the simple reason of justifying whatever sentence he gets

But it is not up to the public to justify the sentence.
It is up to the judge.
If it were up to the public, many people would have been executed for lesser crimes than the one under discussion.
The popular thing in recent years has been to discount the views of experts and to distrust and even despise professionals.

But the public do not have a right to know everything, and my opinion is that more consideration should have been given to the rights privacy of both the victim’s and the perpetrator’ families which have been over-ridden in what is wrongly considered the public interest.

It's hard to grasp. I know this is a ridiculous thing to say but he looks such a nice young man.

I think we do need to know exactly what he has done for the simple reason of justifying whatever sentence he gets. There’s too many do-gooders out there that would want him ‘rehabilitated’ or saying he is ‘rehabiliated’ when he’s let out, let’s say in 25/30 years time, load of tosh, he’s a bad’un. I for one would throw the key away for what he’s done to this gorgeous wee girl and that’s because I’ve read what he’s capable of.

It is a really chilling, awful case. Such a beautiful, happy little girl. Her killer managed to go into her house and take her from her bed whilst her dad watched porn and smoked cannabis. He also supplied the killer with his drugs. You wrongly don’t think of such bad things happening in such a lovely place do you ?

KaryK I remember getting a photo of Myra Hindley and tearing it into little pieces as if it was her personally. It's hard to cope with knowing details. Imagine the poor family of that little girl having to live the rest of their lives with the knowledge.