Ann Maguire’s killer should never have been named
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Version 0 of 1. The public interest is not served by the prurient media disclosure of the identity of a child who has committed a crime, no matter how trivial nor how serious. Any judge who claims that it is in the public interest to identify a 16-year-old boy convicted of murder – as happened today to the killer of schoolteacher Ann Maguire – risks giving in to the voracious media and to public voyeurism. The severity of the sentence, in this case a 20-year prison term, is what serves the public interest. We have all the information we need to meet the requirement of deterrence. The public may be interested in hearing more details about the perpetrator, but that is not the same thing as the public interest. The face of a child staring out from a newspaper is no succour to the family of his victim. It offers no additional protection or support to them. Indeed, it is likely to whip up a lynch mob mentality and exacerbate completely unnecessary fear about an extraordinary and unique crime. There are very few children who commit serious and violent crimes, and parading them in public fuels the mistaken view that this is more prevalent. There are only 16 children in custody for murder. It is, thankfully, an extremely rare crime. Children who commit crimes, even the most heinous, are afforded additional protection in international and domestic law, but this is being flouted increasingly by courts who are supine in the face of media pressure. The reason we are supposed to have the welfare of children at the heart of the penal system is that we hope that we can help young people to mature and become good citizens. Children do not have the resilience or experience to deal with public opprobrium at the same time as coming to terms with what they have done. There has to be redemption at some point for a 16-year-old. The 20-year sentence in this case is one of the longest given to any child, and will mean this boy is in late middle age before he is likely to be moved to an open prison and considered for release. We have about 13,000 men (mostly men) serving life and indeterminate sentences in England and Wales, more than all the other 46 countries in Europe added together. The decision to identify a child is also a life sentence, as this information will be on the internet for life. The child will be notorious inside prison and will never be able to grow past the crime he committed. The crime is now his permanent identity. Public knowledge about the child also brings with it identification of his wider family, who in their way are also victims of such terrible tragedies, and will never be able to live free of it. The criminal justice process should seek to heal an event that has wrought havoc and misery. We should support victims and witnesses and families. We should not exploit an individual child to sell newspapers. |