The persecution of Jeffries by the press

Chris Jefferies was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Jo Yates, he was later released and another man was arrested and charged with her murder. However by that time the newspapers had smeared Jeffries name so much that he was able to make a case against the newspapers.

He was called a “confirmed bachelor” by the telegraph and both the mirror and the sun openly said people believed he was gay.  This shows that the newspapers are not very supportive of gay rights, this in turn reflects societies view, or what the newspapers think societies view is. However many comments on the articles are sarcastically saying that it’s such a crime, even if it’s only possible that he’s gay. They also say that it bears no relevance to the case and why would he randomly kill a female if he was a gay man.

On top of this he was said to be obsessed with death because of the old poetry he reads. Obsessed is a really strong word that suggests this is the only thing on his mind. It also suggests that reading old poetry makes you more likely to be a killer, even if he was an English teacher and would therefore be interested in old poetry as that’s his job. This shows that people feel that liking old poetry makes you creepy.

As well as this he was described as weird because of his dyed blue comb over. This suggests that societies view is that only young people should have their hair dyed unnatural colours and that if you are older with an unnatural hair colour you are not mentally right.

All this shows that newspapers at least think that Britain views anyone as slightly out there as a weird outsider, basically stripping people of the human right to self-expression.

Many people agree that newspapers take gambles on people being guilty. If they are then the newspaper got it right and sold a lot of newspapers because of interesting stories. If they were wrong then they still sold lots of newspapers and the financial benefit of that far out weights the risk of being sewed as they will have gained more money than they’d have to pay out.

This is much like the topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge. The magazines all knew it was wrong and that they’d get sewed but they’d sell enough publications to still have profit even after having to pay legal fees and compensation.