reprise - I don’t know for sure but I’d be surprised if they would/could be that cold-hearted.
ultress - some teevee reports said he did phone the police a day or two after hearing the ‘screams’ - it was also reported that it’s possible the noise could have been foxes.
I also have serious concerns with the way elements of the tabloid media seemingly exploit situations like this for their own purposes – actually, I almost asked in GQ whether there has ever been a case of a newspaper paying money as a result of one of these ‘reward for information leading to the arrest…’ offers. In this case, the amount of free publicity a couple of papers have received is quite remarkable.
Another potential aspect to it – and one certainly pertinent to this investigation – is that it encourages people to phone the police with any piece of information, relevant or not. That, on the face of it, seems a good thing but it’s not according to the police – it dilutes, delays and can sidetrack investigators from the main themes, as well as consumes manpower.
FWIW, I also have concerns with the way the same media tend to demonise the Internet and, by implication, computers, without any foundation – sure parents need to take all reasonable precautions but wholly speculative and sensationalist ‘reporting’ serves no ones interest.
I just can’t imagine what the families must have gone through last night. After (I think) eight days, I don’t know…it’s just desperate.
I think they’re playing mind-games with the perp, via the media.
As for the computer thing, every time the internet is mentioned in connection with a crime, the media trot out the same old uninformed fucking tripe. Irish Dopers: see Kevin Myers’s column today. :rolleyes:
The way the jogger story was reported here, he reported the noises as soon as the abduction was publicised (he’d assumed it was just teenagers being stupid at the time) but for some reason the police didn’t comb the area thoroughly until the jogger returned there, discovered disturbed earth and reported THAT. The media here has reported that the taxi driver wasn’t interviewed AT ALL until 4 days after he notified police about what he’d seen.
I guess the truth will be come apparent in due course, but it sure sounds like the police are overwhelmed with too many “leads”.
I haven’t read that article, but my understanding is he heard the screams on the Sunday night that the girls went missing, and reported them at some time during the week. He noticed the disturbed ground yesterday, and reported it to the police.
In the absense of any progress or new leads, the media have taken to criticising the police for not following up important leads. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that there is a massive amount of information to sift through, and time taken in having to explain themselves to the media is time taken from the actual investigation.
I’m getting really sick of the way the media is behaving in this case. I sick of the way they behave in lots of cases, to be honest. I wish they’d remember that whilst they have a valuable role to play in assisting the police, they don’t have a role to play in the actual investigation, or in being our moral guardians against the evils of the internet. the internet is something they refer to as if it were some coherent entity - the girls were “lured by the internet”. Still, we can’t expect any better from a media which believes only one women can understand anything technical or scientific.
In precis, he’s bitching in an overly-opinionated, completely uninformed manner, about the internet, and saying “those computer people don’t care about paedophiles”, comparing it to poisons and things. He’s also alleging that paedophiles are the new threat to society, like Nazis.
It was reported fairly recently that the “internet connection” was a blind alley, although the police have been keeping schtumm about what else they may have found on the computers. So after all their posing and nonsensical chat about the perils of the internet, the newsbunnies have gone bit quieter on that front. At one stage the whole circus was pretty much replicating Chris Morris’s Brass Eye.
I have been completely confused by all the reports surrounding the witness who heard screams and then discovered the disturbed earth. I have no idea when he saw or heard what, or when he reported anything to the police, or when they followed up his report.
I do remember that first TV reports were of “two areas” of disturbed earth. Was this a deliberate ploy to get us to imagine two little graves, one for each child?
As if the whole idea of the possible crimes involved isn’t bad enough.
Update: the taxi driver lead has fallen apart now that the time has been psitively confirmed (the passenger he was carrying made a mobile phone call and the police were able to use this to pinpoint the time)
The police have sent text and voice messages to one of the girls’ mobile phones and have publicly appealed for the abductor to pick it up.
I would have assumed this would be one of the first actions the police would take. It’s hard to imagine the abductor answering the phone at this stage (or even being stupid enough to leave it turned on - assuming of course that the battery isn’t well and truly flat by now).
I realise that this case is attracting enormous attention in Britain and that any and every report even vaguely connected to it is guaranteed to attract viewers or sell newspapers, but getting “experts” to second guess the reasons behind police strategies or to speculate on the future course of action to be taken by police borders on the culpable.
Whoever has these girls is almost certainly following the media reports on the case and publishing speculative “expert” opinions like the one quoted above is akin to putting to air an “expert opinion” that ‘the most likely action by the police if this hostage crisis isn’t ended in the next hour or two will be to send tactical response units to storm the building’ - it’s not simply irresponsible, it’s dangerously so.
Cannot the police or the parents seek and injunction to halt this kind of media speculation on the grounds that discussion of possible operational details could directly endanger the girls lives, or - if they are already dead - lessen the likelihood of this criminal being detected and apprehended?
I agree about the media ‘expert’ analysis of police tactics. Unless the police are very clever, then they are doing nothing more than giving the game away completely.
What they’re doing now could be quite clever, if the abductor is a bit thick: the detective leading the investigation has left voicemail and SMS messages on Jessica’s cellphone, for the abductor. To retrieve them, he would of course have to turn the phone on, thus giving the cops a 3-cell reading on his position.
Of course, if he isn’t thick, he’s not going to turn the phone on.
They’re concentrating their investigations back onto Soham.
One wonders how much the police are playing the media, or whether it’s out of control.